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ILLUSTRATED 


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NEW   rORK    '    FREDERICK    A. 
STOKES    COMPANY   •   Publishers 


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Copyright,  igoo,  by 
Frederick  A.  Stokes  Company 


The  Univtrsiti  Press 
Cambridge,  U.S.A. 


ILLUSrRATIONS 


John  Drew  (Photogravure)      .      .  Frontispiece 

Mrs.  John   Drew  as  Mrs.  Malaprop  in    page 
"The  Rivals" 4 

Josephine    Baker    as    Moya    in    "  The 
Shaughraun "         8 

John  Drew  as  the  Adjutant   in   "The 

Passing  Regiment" 12 

With  Ada  Rehan  as  Eric  Thorndyke 
and  Kate  Verity  in  "  The  Squire"      .      16 
With  Ada   Rehan  as  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Ford     in     "  The     Merry    Wives    of 

Windsor"        20 

As  Belleville  in  "  The  Country  Girl "      24 
As  Captain  Plume  in  "The  Recruit- 
ing Officer" 28 

As  Petruchio  in  "The  Taming  of  the 

Shrew" 32 

With  Ada  Rehan  as  Howell   Everett 
and  Val  Osprey  in  "  The  Railroad  of 

Love" 36 

As  Orlando  in  "As  You  Like  It"     .     42 

With  Ada  Rehan  as  Young  Mirabel 

and  Oriana  in  "The  Liconstant"    .        48 


ILL  u sr RA  no  N s 

John  Drew  as  Charles  Surface  in  "The      Page 

School  for  Scandal" 54 

As  the  King  of  Navarre  in  "Love's 

Labour 's  Lost " 60 

As  Robin  Hood  in  "The  Foresters"       66 
With  Maude  Adams  as  Ossian  and 
Miriam  in  "Butterflies"    ....        72 
As  Viscount  Clivebrooke  in   "  The 

Bauble  Shop" 78 

As  Mr.   Kilroy  in  "The  Squire  of 

Dames" 84 

With  Maude   Adams  as   Sir  Jasper 
and  Dolly  in  "Rosemary"      ...        90 
As   the   Comte  de  Candale   in   "A 
Marriage  of  Convenience"     ...        96 
As  Sir  Christopher  Deering  in  "The 

Liars" 102 

With  Blanche  Burton  as  Sir  Christo- 
pher Deering  and  Mrs.   Ebernoe   in 

"The  Liars" 108 

With  Ida  Conquest  and  Arthur  By- 
ron in  "The  Tyranny  of  Tears"     .      114 
With  Frank  Lamb  and  Arthur  Byron 
in  "The  Tyranny  of  Tears"      .      .      120 

Miss  Ethel  Barrymore 126 


JOHN  DREIV 


^  Part  First 

UNTIL  very  lately  John 
Drew  had  been  for  years 
the  most  approved  repre- 
sentative on  our  dramatic  stage  of 
gay,  volatile  young  gentlemen,  and 
in  this  present  hour,  more  because 
of  the  accidents  of  the  play  market, 
I  believe,  than  for  any  signs  of  the 
flight  of  years  in  his  appearance  or 
his  demeanour,  he  is  accepted  as  the 
type  of  polite  man  of  the  world, 
the  social  philosopher,  never  too 
strenuously  philosophical,  the  cour- 
tier, the  wit,  the   diplomatist,  just 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

at  the  threshold  of  the  middle 
years.  Mr.  Drew  is,  perhaps,  the 
most  essentially  "  m.odern "  of  all 
our  actors.  His  elegance  is  the 
elegance  of  a  chapter  of  Henry 
James,  rather  than  that  of  a  scene 
by  Congreve.  He  has  acted  with 
admirable  skill  in  the  "  old  come- 
dies," and  with  rare  eloquence  in 
plays  of  Shakespeare ;  but  in  the 
public  mind  he  has  been  most 
closely  associated  with  plays  of  the 
passing  hour,  and  the  moods  and 
manners  of  the  immediate  present. 
He  is,  in  the  popular  phrase,  "  un- 
theatrical.'*  It  is  felt  that  he  takes 
the  manners  of  polite  society  from 
the  drawing-room  directly  to   the 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

stage.  Yet  Mr.  Drew  is  one  of  a 
comparatively  few  prominent  actors 
of  this  day  who  were  actually  born 
to  the  stage.  He  is  of  the  third 
generation  of  a  theatrical  family  ; 
both  of  his  parents  were  actors, 
and  so  were  their  parents.  He 
began  his  theatrical  career  at  the 
age  of  nineteen  years,  and  served 
an  apprenticeship  in  the  stock  com- 
pany of  the  Arch  Street  Theatre 
in  Philadelphia,  nearly  two  years 
before  he  got  his  opening  in  New 
York. 

I  can  recall  vividly  the  impression 
I  received,  in  1875,  of  the  young 
actor  who  made  his  first  appearance, 
February  1 5th  of  that  year,  at  the 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

Fifth  Avenue  Theatre  in  the  taking 
role  of  Bob  Ruggles  in  The  Big 
Bonanza^  a  comedy  in  which  the 
plot  and  characterisation  of  the 
German  "  Ultimo/'  by  Von  Moser, 
were  adapted  as  closely  as  possible  to 
an  American  environment.  Rug- 
gles was  a  glib  but  well-meaning 
youth  who  met  a  nice  girl  on  her 
way  home  from  boarding  school, 
helped  her  out  of  some  trifling  pre- 
dicament on  the  railroad,  and  there- 
after paid  successful  court  to  her ; 
an  easy-going,  gracefully  graceless, 
light-hearted,  inconsequential  sort 
of  chap,  with  a  saving  sense  of 
humour  to  restrain  the  follies  of 
passion  and  lend  piquant  effect  to 


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MRS.  JOHN  DREW 
As  Mrs.  Malaprop  in  "  The  Rivals' 


J  O  H  N    D  R  E  JV 

his  harmless  gallantries.  In  fact, 
Ruggles  was  a  typical  "  light  com- 
edy "  part  of  the  era,  then  declin- 
ing, when  "lines"  were  strictly 
observed  and  the  parts  in  plays 
were  "  cast  "  by  the  stage  managers 
almost  as  a  matter  of  course.  As  a 
light  comedian,  in  the  hour  which 
was  still  Lester  Wallack's,  when, 
too,  the  polished  assurance  and  brisk 
patter  of  Mathews  were  vividly  re- 
membered, young  John  Drew  had 
many  deficiencies.  Lightness  of 
touch  in  any  branch  of  art  is  not 
easily  acquired,  and  Drew  reached 
fame  by  no  royal  road. 
In  The  Big  Bonanza  we  all  liked 
him,  because  his  was  a  personality 


y  O  H  N    D  R  E  JV 

new  and  pleasing,  because  he  was 
unaffected  and  gentlemanly ;  and 
some  of  us  saw  a  promise  of  some- 
thing better  in  his  work.  Yet  the 
old  stagers  did  not  hesitate  to  say 
(they  never  hesitate  to  say  anything 
cruel  about  young  actors),  that  he 
"  made  nothing  at  all "  of  his  op- 
portunities. He  scarcely  "  played 
up "  to  the  experienced  Fanny 
Davenport  in  his  love  scenes  with 
her,  to  be  sure,  yet  he  had  indi- 
viduality, and  he  walked  the  stage 
with  the  ease  of  one  born  to  it. 
Drew  remained  at  the  Fifth  Avenue 
Theatre  more  than  two  years,  until 
its  manager,  the  late  Augustin  Daly, 
suddenly  gave  up  the  lease  at  the 


JOHN    DREW 

very  beginning  of  the  theatre  sea- 
son of  1877-8,  and  probably  in  the 
interval  he  made  some  sort  of  pro- 
gress toward  popularity,  but  the 
company  was  numerous,  and  the 
manager  autocratic.  Mr.  Daly  ob- 
served no  "  lines "  in  casting  his 
plays,  and  although  the  youth  from 
Philadelphia  began  in  a  "  light 
comedy  "  role,  half  a  dozen  more 
experienced  actors  would  have  been 
delighted  to  get,  yet  he  did  not  fig- 
ure conspicuously  as  a  light  come- 
dian in  the  distributions  generally. 
Low  comedy  "  character  '*  parts, 
walking  gentlemen  and  utilities 
(chiefly  the  last-named),  fell  thickly 
to  his  share,  and  he  was  accounted 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

reasonably  harmless  in  most  of 
them.  His  Dudley  Smooth,  in 
1 876,  seemed  to  me  an  uncom- 
monly clever  piece  of  work,  but  I 
suppose  the  veterans  of  that  time 
considered  that  it  lacked  depth  and 
weight.  I  liked  him  very  much 
as  the  rattle-brained  youngster, 
Thorsby  Gyll,  in  Pique,  which  he 
played  with  really  buoyant  effect, 
but  the  performance  did  not  set 
the  town  ablaze. 

Young  Drew's  "recognition,"  prop- 
erly, was  to  be  deferred  till  he  grew 
artistically  strong  enough  to  bear 
success.  He  had  two  years  of 
varied  experiences,  some  of  them 
picturesque,   as    a   travelling    actor 


JOSKPHINE  I'.AKKR 
As  Moya  in  "The  Sliaugliraun 


y  O  H  N    D  R  E  PF 

before  his  opportunity  came.  In 
the  earliest  weeks  of  Daly's  Thea- 
tre, weeks  of  uphill  labor,  which 
called  into  exercise  all  its  man- 
ager's strength  of  purpose  and  in- 
domitable courage,  Mr.  Drew  did 
not  figure  very  brilliantly  in  the 
company,  but  along  in  November 
Mr.  Daly  gave  him  a  small  lecture 
and  a  good  part. 

"  I  gave  you  Bob  Ruggles,"  he 
said,  "  and  you  did  nothing  with 
it ;  I  wrote  Thorsby  Gyll  expressly 
for  you,  and  you  did  nothing  to 
speak  of  with  that.  Here  *s  your 
last  chance.  Make  a  hit  in  this,  and 
I  '11  advance  you  in  my  company. 
Fail,  and  I  'm  done  with  you." 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

Emphatic  words,  but  the  great  man- 
ager had  a  way  of  using  such  words 
and  of  meaning  what  he  said,  and 
just  that  kind  of  heroic  treatment 
did  worlds  of  good  to  many  a  young 
actor  who  had  the  good  fortune  to 
serve  under  his  sway.  I  do  not 
think  that  Drew  had  been  neglect- 
ful of  his  duty  that  autumn.  Not 
many  good  parts  had  gone  his  way, 
to  be  sure,  but  I  well  remember 
how  clearly  he  denoted  the  few  ap- 
preciable traits  of  the  Rev.  Harry 
Duncan,  the  mild  young  clergy- 
man, in  a  few  performances  of 
Daly's  Divorce^  put  on  as  a  stop 
gap,  and  the  manliness  and  dramatic 
force  of  his  acting  of  Arnold  Brink- 

lO 


y  O  H  N    D  R  E  IV 

worth  in  a  single  performance  of 
the  dramatisation  of  Wilkie  Col- 
lins's  Man  and  Wife,  Still  he  was 
duly  humble  and  grateful,  and  I  can 
testify  from  personal  observation 
that  he  took  his  lesson  seriously 
to  heart,  and  worked  as  he  never 
worked  before  in  mastering  his 
new  part.  He  spent  hours  locked 
in  his  room,  long  after  he  had 
learnt  the  words,  piecing  together 
significant  bits  of  illustrative  busi- 
ness, harmonising  in  his  mind  the 
details  of  action  settled  upon  at 
rehearsal.  His  reward  came  in 
the  boisterous  applause  bestowed 
upon  his  alert,  humorous,  grace- 
ful acting    in    the    new  play.    An 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

Arabian  Night,  November  29, 
1879. 

His  character  was  Alexander  Sprin- 
kle, a  young  married  man  oppressed 
by  a  formidable  mother-in-law,  who, 
in  the  most  innocent  mood  imagin- 
able, occasionally  seeks  adventure 
in  the  manner  of  that  renowned 
Caliph  of  Bagdad  whose  glory  is 
celebrated  by  Scheherazade.  Mr. 
Drew  has  acted  many  better  parts 
in  a  similar  vein  since  that  night 
of  his  first  notable  triumph  ;  toward 
the  close  of  his  long  and  memo- 
rable engagement  at  Daly's,  he  took 
up  the  same  r6le  under  a  different 
name,  in  Sydney  Grundy's  much 
more  compact  version  of  the  same 


JOHN  DREW 
As  the  Adjutant  in  "  The  Passing  Regiment  " 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

German  play  which,  like  the  origi- 
nal of  The  Big  Bo?ia?iza,  was  written 
by  Von  Moser.  But  that  was  the 
night  that  "  made  him  quite," 
though  I  fancy  he  would  not  have 
been  "  undone  "  if  the  popular  ver- 
dict had  been  against  his  perform- 
ance. His  inborn  talent  would 
have  told  in  time.  An  Arabian 
Night  had  the  first  considerable 
run  of  that  first  season  at  Daly's, 
and  John  Drew's  was  the  most 
distinguished  personal  success  in  its 
performance.  From  that  time  on 
he  was  an  actor  to  be  reckoned 
with.  From  that  time  the  good 
qualities  in  his  acting  never  lacked 
appreciation  in  as  large  measure  as 

13 


J  O  H  N    D  R  E  ^ 

the  best  of  actors  can  hope  for. 
He  had  passed  safely  through  his 
apprenticeship,  and  was,  hencefor- 
ward, until  he  deliberately  became 
a  star,  a  "  leading  man,"  though 
Mr.  Daly  discountenanced  even 
the  empty  forms  of  "  lines  '*  of 
work  among  his  actors. 
It  is  necessary,  before  proceeding 
further  with  this  record  of  his 
career,  to  put  down  some  of  the 
particulars  of  his  origin  and  his 
novitiate.  He  was  born  in  Phila- 
delphia in  November,  1853,  ^^^  ^^^^ 
educated  in  that  city  at  the  Protes- 
tant Episcopal  Academy.  He  was 
fitted  for  entrance  to  a  university, 
but,  instead,  after  a  short  trip  abroad, 

H 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

went  upon  the  stage  to  earn  his 
own  living  in  the  theatre  so  long 
managed  by  his  mother,  known  in 
her  later  years  as  the  inimitable 
Mrs.  Malaprop  of  Mr.  Jefferson's 
condensation  of  The  Rivals.  In 
his  two  seasons  of  service  at  the 
Arch  Street  Theatre,  young  John 
Drew  pretended  to  be  divers  and 
many  persons  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  Philadelphians.  Officious 
Cousin  Crummy  in  Betsy  Baker, 
Mr.  Hornblower  in  The  Laughing 
Hyena,  and  a  dozen  or  more  similar 
secondary  roles  in  old  farces  fell 
to  his  share.  He  was  sentimental 
Adolph  de  Courtroy  in  The  Captain 
of  the  Watch,  wicked  but  penitent 

J5 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

Captain  Crosstree  in  Jerrold's  Black 
Eyed  Susan,  Dolly  Spanker  in 
London  Assurance,  insulted  Caspar 
in  The  Lady  of  Lyons,  —  "Oh, 
Melnotte,  a  blow  !  "  —  bashful 
Cousin  Modus  in  The  Hunchback, 
and  the  County  Paris  in  Romeo  and 
yuliet,  the  last  three  roles  in  the 
support  of  the  renowned  Adelaide 
Neilson,  then  the  loveliest  Pauline 
Deschappelles,  Julia  and  Juliet  of 
the  stage. 

Mr.  Daly  went  to  Philadelphia  to 
see  a  new  play  called  Wo?nen  of  the 
Day  which  was  acted  at  the  Arch 
Street  Theatre  in  the  winter  of 
1874-5.  There  was  a  dearth  of 
good    new    plays    and    this    piece, 

16 


JOHN   DREW  AND  ADA  K F.HAN 
As  Flic  'riioniilykc  :ind  Katr  \'eiity  in    "  Tlie  Siiuir 


JOHN    D  R  E  PF 

written  by  a  member  of  Mrs. 
Drew's  company,  Charles  H.  Mor- 
ton, who  had  been  the  original 
actor  of  the  title  role  in  T/ie  Black 
Crook,  was  better  than  some  others. 
Daly  bought  it  and  produced  it  in 
his  beautiful  New  York  house,  with 
a  distribution  which  would  not  have 
been  amiss  in  the  The  School  for 
Scandal.  But  the  play  is  not  re- 
membered now  for  that  reason,  or 
for  the  crisp  humour  of  James 
Lewis,  as  the  light-hearted  young 
husband,  the  mellow  fun  of  Dav- 
idge,  as  a  story-telling  physician,  or 
the  voluble  delivery  by  Miss  Daven- 
port of  a  description  of  a  new  frock 
which  v/as  actually  its  most  memo- 
2  17 


J  O  H  N    D  RE  IF 

rable  passage,  but  for  the  fact  that 
it  served  as  a  stepping-stone  in  the 
career  of  John  Drew.  He  acted 
in  Philadelphia  the  role  of  Major 
Alfred  Steele,  taken  in  New  York 
by  Lewis,  and  the  visiting  manager 
from  the  metropolis  was  more 
favourably  impressed  by  his  display 
of  rudimentary  ability  than  were 
the  famous  London  manager  who 
went  to  Portsmouth  to  see  Miss 
Henrietta  Petowker,  and  saw  also 
the  Infant  Phenomenon,  and  that 
other  historic  impresario  who  sat 
in  a  box  to  observe  the  effect  of 
Old  Bows's  training  upon  Miss 
Fotheringay,  impressed  by  what 
they  saw.     For  Mr.  Drew  was  en- 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

gaged  forthwith  for  a  place  in  the 
splendid  company  of  the  Fifth 
Avenue  Theatre. 

The  Big  Bonanza  filled  out  the  re- 
mainder of  that  season  of  1874-5 
at  the  Fifth  Avenue  Theatre,  and 
the  young  recruit  acted  volatile 
Bob  until  nearly  midsummer.  The 
next  season,  as  a  compensation  for 
the  monotony  of  his  work  in  this, 
he  was  cast  for  many  and  all  kinds 
of  parts.  He  had  the  small  role 
of  Freddy  Carter  in  a  revival  of 
Bronson  Howard's  farcical  Saratoga 
at  the  beginning  of  the  term,  and 
soon  afterward  Mr.  Daly  tempo- 
rarily gave  up  his  theatre  and  the 
services    of    his    company    to    the 

19 


J  O  H  N    D  R  E  TF 

reintroduction  to  the  New  York 
stage  of  Edwin  Booth,  who  had 
retired  for  a  while  after  his  pecu- 
niary failure  at  Booth's  Theatre, 
and  had  sustained  severe  injury 
also  in  a  runaway  accident,  the 
report  of  which  had  helped  to 
greatly  increase  the  show  of  public 
sympathy  with  him.  This  engage- 
ment under  the  management  of 
Augustin  Daly,  was  important  in 
the  history  of  the  foremost  Ameri- 
can tragedian  of  his  epoch,  and  it 
was  not  wholly  unimportant  in  the 
career  of  John  Drew.  Not  very 
much  praise  fell  to  the  youngster's 
share  for  his  perfectly  well-meant 
efforts  in  Shakespeare's  plays,  I  sup- 


JOHN  DKKW  AND  AJsA  RI2HAN 
As  Mr.  and  Mis.  Fcjrd  iti  "  1  lie  ML-rry  Wivirs  ol  \\  iiidsor ' 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

pose,  but  the  experience  was  cer- 
tainly valuable  to  him.  Mr.  Daly 
induced  Mr.  Booth  to  take  up  a  new 
role,  Richard  II.,  the  last  new  char- 
acter, as  I  remember,  that  Booth 
studied.  His  portrayal  of  the  hes- 
itating Plantagenet  was  one  of  his 
most  eloquent  and  most  pathetic 
performances,  but  the  people  never 
warmed  to  it.  The  play  is,  unques- 
tionably, dry  and  cold,  and  after  1878 
Booth  dropped  the  victim  of  Boling- 
broke  from  his  repertory.  In  his 
first  performance  of  the  role,  the 
character  of  Sir  Pierce  of  Exton,  the 
obscure  gentleman  whose  duty  it 
was  to  wickedly  kill  the  imprisoned 
King,  was  carried  in  a  sufficiently 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

workmanlike  manner  by  John 
Drew.  In  Lear,  the  young  actor 
appeared  briefly  and  modestly  as  the 
King  of  France ;  while  in  Bulwer's 
Richelieu,  he  was  earnest  young 
Fran9ois,  to  whom  there  is  no  such 
word  as  fail.  He  also  appeared  as 
Francis  in  The  Stranger.  In  Hamlet, 
which  was,  of  course,  the  most  con- 
spicuous play  in  the  great  tragedian's 
repertory,  I  am  not  sure  whether 
his  character  was  Rosencranz  or 
Guildenstern.  My  own  record 
says  one,  Mr.  Drew's  memory  says 
the  other ;  but  he  is  not  sure  of  his 
memory,  and  treats  the  matter  in 
a  reprehensibly  light-hearted  way, 
intimating  that  he  does  not  care. 


J  O  H  N    D  R  E  IV 

This  sort  of  carelessness  is  painful 
to  the  theatrical  biographer.  It  is 
quite  clear  that  Mr.  Drew  could 
not  have  doubled  the  courtiers, 
because  they  are  always  on  the 
stage  together.  On  the  other 
hand,  I  am  not  sure,  in  the  cir- 
cumstances, of  my  record,  and 
playbills,  in  such  minor  matters, 
are  very  misleading  historical 
documents. 

Another  star  engagement  at  the 
Fifth  Avenue  Theatre  that  season 
was  that  of  Clara  Morris,  who  had 
made  her  fame  at  the  first  Fifth 
Avenue  Theatre,  under  Daly's 
management,  a  few  years  before. 
She     appeared,    without     securing 

23 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

much  public  support,  in  a  new 
version  of  Daly's  adaptation  of 
Mosenthal's  "  Deborah  "  called 
T/ie  New  Leah,  and  Mr.  Drew 
was  the  supposedly  amusing  village 
barber  and  surgeon.  Pique,  a  drama 
in  five  acts,  founded  partly  on  a 
story  by  Florence  Marryat  called 
"  Her  Lord  and  Master,"  and 
partly  on  a  chapter  in  "  Les  Mise- 
rables,*'  was  produced  December  14, 
1875,  and  held  the  stage  till  the 
roses  of  1876  were  in  bloom.  In 
this  Drew's  Thorsby  Gyll  was  the 
companion  and  adviser  in  mischief 
of  a  red-headed  youth  named  Sam- 
my Dymple  impersonated  by  James 
Lewis.  Thorsby  was  just  a  New 
24 


jOHX  DKI.W 
As  lloUuvill.-  m  "  I  he  Country  (iirl  " 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

York  lad  of  that  particular  epoch, 
concerned  not  too  deeply  in  the 
workings  of  a  decidedly  melodra- 
matic plot,  and  involved  in  a  mild 
little  romance  with  a  happy  end- 
ing. Pique  was  a  drania  of  inci- 
dent, and  its  interest,  too,  was 
largely  pictorial.  Mr.  Drew  was 
a  comparatively  unimportant  young 
actor  among  a  dozen  players  of 
large  experience  and  established 
repute ;  but,  as  I  have  said,  I  treas- 
ure a  very  pleasant  remembrance 
of  the  spirit  and  humour  of  his 
performance. 

The  part  was  a  boon  to  him  after 
his  experience  in  some  of  the  minor 
roles  of  Shakespearean  plays,  to  give 

25 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

anything  like  the  proper  tone  to 
which  he  then  lacked  presence 
and  the  tact  and  command  of  tra- 
ditions the  older  actors  possessed. 
Nothing  is  more  likely  to  take  the 
vanity  out  of  a  youngster  who  has 
enjoyed  a  few  little  triumphs  in 
easy,  colloquial  roles  of  modern 
comedy,  than  an  old-fashioned, 
rather  hap-hazard  course  of  Shake- 
speare. To  be  dignified,  personable, 
and  interesting  while  trying  to  be 
a  courtier  of  Elsinore  or  a  baron 
of  England,  after  two  or  three  per- 
functory rehearsals,  and  clad  in 
things  out  of  the  stock  wardrobe, 
is  almost  impossible.  The  pro- 
ductions of  poetical  drama  at  the 

26 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

Fifth  Avenue  Theatre  in  Mr. 
Booth's  engagement  were  not  pre- 
pared in  the  careful  and  expensive 
manner  of  Mr.  Daly's  later  revivals 
at  Daly's  Theatre.  The  customary 
allowances  had  to  be  made  for 
haste  and  frequent  changes  of  bill. 
If  the  subordinate  actors  knew 
their  parts,  little  more  was  required 
of  them.  You  may  be  sure  that 
Drew  always  knew  his  part.  But 
when  Thorsby  Gyll  came  to  him, 
he  was  the  very  youth,  even  though 
he  may  have  missed  possible  bits 
of  "  business  "  and  shades  of  comic 
meaning  that  a  more  experienced 
comedian  would  have  given  to  the 
performance. 

27 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

Among  the  young  actor's  profes- 
sional associates  in  this  stage  of  his 
career  were  several  players  of  great 
distinction.  James  Lewis  had  not 
yet  reached  the  zenith  of  his  fame, 
or  done  nearly  his  best  work,  but  he 
had  few  equals  in  broad  comedy; 
while  the  company  of  the  Fifth 
Avenue  Theatre  also  included  rare 
old  William  Davidge  ;  Frank  Har- 
denbergh,  a  "  character  actor  "  of 
wide  range ;  John  Brougham,  then 
nearing  the  close  of  his  brilliant 
career  ;  Charles  Fisher,  Owen  Faw- 
cett,  Louis  James,  Daniel  H.  Har- 
kins,  who  quite  lately  has  been  a 
conspicuous  member  of  Mr.  Drew's 
own  supporting  company ;   beauti- 

z8 


JOHN  DREW 
AsCapt;.iii  Plume  in  "  Tlie  Recruiting  Officer" 


y O H  N    DREW 

ful,  bird-like  Sara  Jewett,  Mrs.  Gil- 
bert, and  Fanny  Davenport,  whose 
power  as  a  melodramatic  actress  was 
just  beginning  to  be  felt.  She  long 
retained  Pique  in  her  repertory  after 
she  became  a  star,  because  of  the 
chances  for  showy  acting,  acting  of 
the  loud,  vigorous,  and  strongly  pic- 
torial sort,  that  tells  best  in  melo- 
drama, the  r6le  of  the  heroine, 
Mabel  Renfrew  gave  her.  Miss 
Davenport,  almost  from  the  begin- 
ning of  her  career,  and  she  was  an 
actress  at  the  tender  age  of  twelve, 
had  been  regarded  as  a  comedienne 
exclusively,  and  she  had  even  made 
a  notable  little  hit  as  Lady  Gay 
Spanker  in  London  Assurance  be- 
29 


J  O  H  N    D  R  E  PT 

fore  she  was  fairly  out  of  her  teens. 
She  had  in  her  earlier  years  many 
qualifications  for  comedy.  The 
sparkling  laugh,  which  is  insepar- 
able from  the  role  of  the  coquette 
in  the  old  plays,  and  the  trick  of 
which  seems  to  have  eluded  most 
of  the  contemporary  actresses,  per- 
haps because  elegant  coquetry  has 
gone  out  of  fashion  in  comedy,  she 
could  do  to  perfection.  But  as  she 
grew  older,  lightness  was  not  a  char- 
acteristic of  her  work,  and  her 
powers  of  expression  developed  to- 
ward the  sterner  emotions.  Posi- 
tively the  most  graphic,  forcible, 
and  moving  piece  of  acting  she 
ever   did  was  in   the  third  act  of 

30 


y  O  H  N    D  R  E  U^ 

La  Toscay  the  scene  of  Mario's 
torture. 

John  Brougham  was  a  benevolent 
and  loquacious  old  family  physician 
in  Pique.  The  part  offered  few 
opportunities,  but  Brougham's  day 
was  nearly  done.  He  had  a  "  bene- 
fit," one  of  the  old-fashioned  "  be- 
speak "  sort  that  spring,  when  he 
acted  his  old  part  of  jovial  Murphy 
Maguire  in  The  Serious  Family. 
John  Drew  appeared  in  that  once 
familiar  play  as  Frank  Vincent,  who 
is  but  a  "  walking  gentleman," 
who  is  humbler  than  a  landscape 
painter ;  and  he  was  also  one  of  the 
chorus. of  Indians,  Opodildoc,  I  be- 
lieve, but  that  does  not  matter,  in 

31 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

Brougham's  burlesque  play  called 
Pocahontas,  which  was  also  in  the 
bill.  There  were  a  number  of  other 
similar  special  perforrnances  that 
season,  all  given  afternoons,  because 
Pique  held  the  stage  uninterruptedly 
at  night,  and  Drew  had  something  to 
do  in  each  of  them.  He  acted  the 
polite  gambler,  Dudley  Smooth,  in 
Bulwer's  Money,  for  the  first  time 
at  Harkins's  benefit  matinee ;  while 
at  James  Lewis's  he  appeared  as 
Tootle,  in  a  forgotten  comedy  by 
H.  J.  Byron  called  Weak  Women, 
in  which  the  popular  beneficiary,  as 
Captain  Ginger,  had  a  character  he 
liked,  one,  in  fact,  he  saw  and  felt 
himself  in.     This  play  had   never 

32 


JOHN  DREW 
As  Petriicliio  in  "  J  lie  Taming  of  the  Slirew  " 


J  O  H  N    D  R  E  IV 

been  seen  in  New  York  before,  and 
it  has  never  been  repeated,  but  it 
had  been  briefly  in  the  repertory  of 
Mr.  Daly's  players  when  they 
visited  San  Francisco  the  previous 
summer. 

As  Tou  Like  It  was  given  for  Miss 
Davenport's  "  bespeak,"  with  her 
distinguished  father,  E.  L.  Daven- 
port, as  Jaques,  Lawrence  Barrett 
as  Orlando,  William  Castle,  then 
probably  the  most  popular  tenor  in 
English  opera,  as  Amiens,  Davidge 
as  Touchstone,  and  Miss  Davenport, 
of  course,  as  Rosalind.  The  record 
I  have  at  hand  says  that  Drew  was 
Lebeau,  the  polite  courtier  of  the 
usurping  Duke.      But  he  distinctly 

3  33 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

remembers  that  he  came  on  in  the 
last  scene  as  young  Jaques  du  Bois, 
to  deliver  that  trying  explanatory 
speech  which  has  proved  a  stum- 
bling block  to  so  many  novices, 
because  he  recalls  that  both  Daven- 
port and  Barrett  spoke  kind  words 
to  him  about  the  way  he  got  through 
with  it.  "  They  would  do  that,  of 
course,"  he  modestly  adds.  Prob- 
ably he  "  doubled  "  the  parts.  His 
last  new  role  that  season  was  Cap- 
tain Vivid  in  the  old  farce  of  The 
Siamese  Twins,  which  was  in  the  bill 
for  the  benefit  of  the  business  man- 
ager, Stephen  Fiske. 
The  next  season  that  accomplished 
actor,  Charles  Coghlan,  made  his 

34 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

first  appearance  in  America  as  a 
member  of  Mr.  Daly's  company. 
The  play  was  Money ^  and  his  por- 
trayal of  Alfred  Evelyn  was  the  last 
of  any  striking  merit  and  was  also 
one  of  the  best  the  old  stagers 
of  that  epoch  had  ever  seen.  Bul- 
wer's  Money  belongs  to  a  past  age, 
as  surely  as  Addison's  Cato  and  mad 
Nat  Lee's  Rival  ^eens.  Indeed,  it 
held  the  stage  long  after  its  hour  of 
departure  had  struck,  because  Eve- 
lyn was  always  a  character  in  comedy 
tragedians,  and  "heavy"  men  liked 
to  fancy  they  could  act,  and  the 
piece  had  so  many  other  long  parts 
encrusted  with  theatrical  traditions, 
and  associated  with  famous  actors. 

35 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

In  my  memory  there  has  been  no 
better  performance  of  Bulwer's 
stilted  piece  in  New  York  than  this 
in  which  the  sentiment  of  Evelyn 
was  so  tastefully  denoted  by  Cogh- 
lan,  and  his  priggishness  so  deli- 
cately and  even  agreeably  expressed ; 
while  Davidge  was  the  most  amus- 
ing of  Sir  Johns,  and  Fisher  the 
mellowest  Mr.  Graves  of  his  day; 
while  Brougham  acted  Stout,  and 
Drew  was  really  a  satisfying  Dudley 
Smooth. 

The  young  actor  was  **  out  of  the 
bill "  a  great  deal  this  season.  He 
had  a  sick  spell,  and  there  were  no 
parts  for  him  in  some  of  the  plays. 
In  a  comedy  called  Blue  Glass ^  in 

36 


JOHN'   DRKW  AND  ADA  REHAN 
As  Howell  Everett  and  Val  Osproy  in  "  '1  he  Railruatl  of  l.ove' 


y  O  H  N    D  R  E  JV 

recognition  of  one  of  the  silly  fads 
of  the  hour,  he  appeared  as  Regi- 
nald Haven,  but  the  part  was  noth- 
ing, and  the  piece  lasted  only  a  few 
nights.  This  was  another  of  Mr. 
Daly's  adaptations  of  German  farces, 
but  one  that  did  not  score.  In  a 
few  performances  of  The  Lady  of 
Lyons y  he  acted  Glavis,  and  he  had 
the  role  of  Noirtier  in  a  melodrama 
called  The  Princess  Koyal,  which 
was  put  on  very  elaborately,  but  did 
not  last  long.  Late  in  the  season 
Adelaide  Neilson  appeared  at  the 
Fifth  Avenue  Theatre  as  a  star,  and 
Mr.  Drew  then  had  some  more  of 
that  desirable  journeyman  expe- 
rience in  Shakespeare  as  he  is  acted. 

37 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

To  be  sure,  he  had  the  much  coveted 
role  of  Sir  Andrew  Aguecheek,  in 
Twelfth  Night;  but  as  William 
Winter  wrote  of  his  performance,  in 
his  notice  of  Miss  Neilson's  Viola, 
that  it  was  "  well-meant,  but  entirely 
mistaken,"  it  is  not  likely  that  he 
gained  much  fame  from  that.  I 
remember  him  as  an  equally  well- 
meaning  Cloten  in  Cymbeline^  and 
what  a  dreadful  part  Cloten  is,  to 
be  sure  !  Drew  was  quite  as  good 
as  the  gentleman  who  tried  to  por- 
tray the  barbarity  and  folly  of  that 
ancient  Briton  in  the  late  Margaret 
Mather's  very  beautiful  production 
of  Cymbeline,  though  not  quite  as 
much  the  man  pictorially  as  Wil- 

38 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

Ham  F.  Owen,  whom  I  remember 
to  have  seen  act  Cloten  to  the 
Imogen  of  Helena  Modjeska.  But 
Cloten,  Pisanio,  lachimo  (that  fine 
old  Bowery  actor,  Studley),  Post- 
humus  (eloquent  Eben  Plympton) 
were  of  small  moment,  for  the 
Imogen  was  all  in  all.  Imogen 
was  the  rarest  and  sweetest  por- 
trayal of  Adelaide  Neilson.  There 
has  been  no  Imogen  since  fit  to 
compare  with  hers,  which  repre- 
sented the  perfect  flower  of  her 
genius  and  art.  Cleopatra  was  to 
have  been  her  next  role,  and  she 
would  have  been  the  greatest  Cleo- 
patra of  all  theatrical  history,  but 
she  died  too  soon. 


39 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

Early  in  the  next  season  Mr.  Daly's 
tenancy  of  the  Fifth  Avenue  Thea- 
tre, which  stood  on  the  site  of  the 
present  house  bearing  that  name, 
but  was  not  nearly  as  comfortable 
or  commodious,  ended  abruptly.  It 
had  been  unfortunate  in  the  very 
beginning,  with  Albery's  mistakenly 
named  comedy.  Fortune,  which  ran 
five  consecutive  nights  and  then 
was  heard  no  more  ;  and  the  only 
plays  which  had  long  runs  in  the 
four  years  were  The  Big  Bonanza 
and  Pique,  the  only  two  in  which 
young  John  Drew  was  actually  con- 
spicuous. So  it  may  truly  be  said 
that  he  was  identified  with  the  best 
fortunes  of  the  house.  When  the 
40 


JOHN    DREW 

first  Fifth  Avenue  Theatre,  the 
dainty  Httle  house  of  the  rose 
pink  auditorium,  burned,  after  the 
matinee  New  Year's  Day,  1873, 
Daly  was  prosperous;  but  he  had 
big  undertakings  on  hand,  and 
much  money  was  needed  to  tem- 
porarily establish  his  large  com- 
pany, while  the  Gilseys  were 
building  the  new  house  at  Twenty- 
eighth  Street,  and  to  carry  on  his 
expensive  side  issue  of  resplendent 
spectacle  at  the  Grand  Opera 
House.  He  once  told  me  that 
he  began  operations  at  the  new 
Fifth  Avenue  Theatre  thirty  thou- 
sand dollars  in  debt,  and,  with  all 
his  efforts,   and  it   could  never  be 

41 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

said  of  him  in  those  days  that  he 
adhered  bHndly  to  any  one  policy 
in  the  face  of  certain  failure,  he 
was  unable  to  recuperate.  His  rent 
was  the  biggest  in  town,  and  the 
season  of  1876—7  was  bad  almost 
beyond  precedent.  For  some 
weeks  after  the  terrible  destruc- 
tion of  human  life  in  the  burning 
of  the  Brooklyn  Theatre,  Decem- 
ber 5,  1876,  all  the  plays  were 
given  to  empty  benches.  To 
cap  the  climax,  the  rent  was  in- 
creased at  the  beginning  of  the 
new   season. 

An  adaptation  of  the  French  melo- 
drama, "  Les  Compagnons  de  la 
Truelle,"    called    The    Dark    City, 

42 


JOHN'  DREW 
As  Orlando  in  "  As  \vu  Like  It  " 


J  O  H  N    D  RETF 

was  elaborately  mounted  Septem- 
ber 4th,  and  all  the  members  of  the 
company  had  more  or  less  suitable 
roles.  The  name  of  Drew's  char- 
acter was  Tommy  Kipps.  Seem- 
ingly, however,  no  one  wanted  to 
see  a  play  called  The  Dark  City, 
and  after  a  week  of  disaster,  Mr. 
Daly  threw  over  the  lease  and 
started  out  upon  the  road,  with 
Fanny  Davenport  as  his  star,  and 
most  of  the  actors  engaged  for  the 
Fifth  Avenue  Theatre  \w  her  sup- 
port. Miss  Davenport  had  filled 
starring  engagements  in  some  of 
the  larger  cities  in  the  two  previ- 
ous years,  out  of  the  New  York 
season,  and  already  had  a  follow- 

43 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

ing.  In  this  tour,  which  included 
an  engagement  at  Booth's  Theatre 
in  New  York,  and  lasted  until  well 
along  in  the  spring,  Mr.  Drew 
acted  Thorsby  Gyll  in  Pique,  Syl- 
vius in  As  Tou  Like  It,  Sir  Benja- 
min Backbite  in  The  School  for 
Scandal,  and  Sebastian  in  Twelfth 
Night.  Mr.  Daly  sacrificed  his 
extensive  collection  of  theatrical 
and  other  books  to  pay  his  debts, 
and  paid  a  hundred  cents  on  the 
dollar.  After  a  short  rest  he  went 
abroad  for  the  first  time  to  study 
European  drama,  as  an  adapter  of 
which  he  had  large  European  fame, 
in  its  own  abiding  places.  He  was 
forty  years  old,  and  before  him  lay 

44 


y  O  H  N    D  R  E  IV 

many  prosperous  years  of  royal 
endeavour. 

John  Drew,  looking  for  an  engage- 
ment away  from  "the  Governor," 
found  one  in  the  company  his 
brother-in-law  and  his  sister,  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Barrymore,  were  organis- 
ing, with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Frederick 
Warde  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Majeroni, 
to  perform  Diplomacy^  Clement  Scott 
and  B.  C.  Stephenson's  adaptation 
of  Sardou's  Dora^  which  had  been 
prodigiously  successful  at  Wallack's, 
with  Lester  Wallack  and  H.  J. 
Montague  as  the  brothers,  and  Rose 
Coghlan  as  the  perfumed  adven- 
turess, and  must  be  regarded  as 
one    of    the    most    successful    and 

45 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

typical  plays  of  the  last  quarter  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  The  dis- 
tribution which  this  travelling  com- 
pany was  enabled  to  give  to  the 
play  was  really  exceptionally  strong. 
Warde  was  Henry  and  Barrymore, 
Julian  Beauclerc;  Georgie  Drew 
Barrymore,  Dora;  the  Majeronis, 
capable  Italian  actors  who  had 
learned  to  talk  English,  if  not  to 
understand  it.  Count  OrlofF  and 
Countess  Zicka. 

Mrs.  Majeroni's  English  speech 
was  very  agreeable  and  distinct,  but 
her  lack  of  comprehension  of  the 
language  was  amusingly  illustrated 
once  when  she  was  acting  in 
Camille  in  Brooklyn.     In  Margue- 

46 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

rite  Gautier's  scene  with  her  mon- 
eyed admirer,  in  Act  II.,  he  asks  her 
how  much  she  owes.  The  answer 
is,  "  Thirty  thousand  francs,'*  which 
is  supposed  to  sHghtly  shock  Croe- 
sus ;  but  the  fair  Camille  repHed 
instead,  "Thirty  francs,*'  and  went 
on  with  her  part  industriously,  quite 
unconscious  of  the  amazement  of 
the  audience. 

In  Diplofnacy^  Mr.  Drew  was  Algie 
Fairfax.  The  company  started 
well  with  good  "notices,"  and  the 
best  wishes  of  all  their  friends ;  but 
the  vast  machinery  of  the  modern 
combination  system  had  not  been 
perfected  then  and  the  names  of 
Barry  more,   Majeroni,   and  Warde 

47 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

were  not,  indeed,  names  to  conjure 
with,  though  pertaining  to  esti- 
mable and  comely  young  persons. 
As  the  subject  of  this  biographical 
sketch  blithely  expresses  it,  "  Busi- 
ness was  very  bad,  so  Warde  and 
Barrymore  decided  to  halve  it,  and 
split  the  company  in  two."  The 
Barrymores,  accompanied  by  Drew, 
with  Ben  Porter,  an  old  fashioned 
actor  of  some  repute,  and  Ellen 
Cummins  for  Henry  Beauclerc  and 
the  Countess,  went  southward.  In 
Texas,  late  that  season  of  1878-9, 
Miss  Cummins,  Porter,  Drew,  and 
Barrymore  were  making  a  poor  and 
hasty  meal  in  a  railroad  restaurant. 
James  Currie,  a  statesman  of  that 


JiJHX   DREW  AM)  ADA  RK.HAX 
As  Voan^  .Nlirabel  and  '  'nana  in  "  1  lie  Inconstant' 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

neighbourhood,  paid  his  addresses, 
without  waiting  for  the  formality 
of  an  introduction,  to  the  lady,  and 
her  companions  remonstrated  with 
him.  Being  in  his  most  chivalrous 
and  statesmanlike  mood,  Mr.  Currie 
replied  in  the  renowned  Texan 
fashion.  Porter  was  killed,  Barry- 
more  wounded,  and  the  tour  of 
Diplomacy  ended  by  brief  but  effec- 
tual Civil  War. 


49 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

i^  Part  Second 

"^HESE  years  I  have  dwelt 
upon,  perhaps  with  too 
great  persistency,  were 
not  the  most  interesting  in  the 
career  of  a  renowned  actor,  but 
they  were  of  the  utmost  impor- 
tance to  him.  In  them  he  served 
his  apprenticeship  in  the  art  in 
which  he  became  a  master-work- 
man. They  included  four  years 
of  stock  company  duty,  two  of 
them  in  an  old  fashioned  company 
of  the  typical  sort,  with  a  change 
of  bill  every  week  and  the  "  lines  '* 
rigidly  observed,  two  more  in  the 

5° 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

service  of  the  most  autocratic,  orig- 
inal, and  artistic  manager  of  the 
metropoHs  in  his  day,  under  the 
strictest  discipline.  They  included 
tours  over  the  whole  country,  from 
Boston  to  San  Francisco,  from  De- 
troit to  Galveston.  When  they 
were  finished,  the  young  man  could 
feel  that  he  knew  much  of  the 
seamy  side  of  an  actor's  life.  He 
could  say,  with  poor  Tom  Wrench, 
in  Trelawny,  that  he  had  had  his  full 
share  of  parts  that  were  very  seri- 
ous and  very  little.  Yet  it  must 
be  admitted  that  he  had  enjoyed 
many  advantages  denied  to  most 
beginners.  As  the  son  of  the  man- 
ager of  the  theatre,  and  bearing  a 

51 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

name  long  honoured  in  theatricals, 
he  enjoyed  a  certain  distinction  in 
the  Philadelphia  company ;  while 
in  New  York  he  began  almost  at 
the  top  of  the  ladder  instead  of  on 
the  traditional  lower  round.  First 
and  last,  however,  he  had  his  full 
allowance  of  apprentice  work,  and 
it  was  not  as  a  favoured  and  over- 
praised darling  of  fortune  that  he 
entered  the  troupe  organised  by 
Augustin  Daly  in  the  summer  of 
1 879,  to  begin  his  new  career  at 
the  theatre  which  was  to  become 
honoured  all  over  the  English- 
speaking  world  as  Daly's. 
Returning  from  his  visit  to  England, 
France,  and  Germany  in  the  spring 

52 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

of  that  year,  Mr.  Daly  had  made  a 
tentative  experiment  in  theatricals 
by  producing  his  own  version  of 
Zola's  U  Assoimnoir  at  the  old  play- 
house called  the  Olympic,  which 
an  earlier  generation  had  esteemed 
as  Laura  Keene's,  and  which  had  for 
some  time  been  regarded  as  super- 
fluous. This  playhouse  was  cleaned 
and  painted,  and  UAssofUfnoir  was 
performed  in  it  a  few  weeks.  The 
incident  would  have  been  forgotten 
but  for  the  connection  with  it  of 
the  fortunes  of  Ada  Rehan,  who 
had  a  small  part  in  the  Zola  play, 
and,  in  an  emergency,  took  a  more 
important  role,  and  enjoyed  a  small 
but  memorable  triumph.     This  led 

53 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

to  her  engagement  for  the  company 
at  the  new  theatre  on  the  site  of 
Banvard's  and  Wood's  Museums, 
and  her  long  association  with  John 
Drew.  In  the  history  of  the 
American  stage,  the  names  of  these 
two  dramatic  artists  are  inseparably 
linked. 

The  dominating  idea  of  Mr.  Daly 
when  he  began  in  the  remodelled 
and  redecorated  house  at  Broadway 
and  Thirtieth  Street  seemed  to  be 
to  cater  to  the  public  liking  for 
light  musical  comedy  which  had 
been  stimulated  by  Pinafore,  the 
success  of  which  as  popular  enter- 
tainment has  been  equalled  by 
very  few  stage  plays.      His  opening 

54 


JOHX  DREW 
As  Charles  Surface  iti  "  Tie  Schoot  tor  Scandal ' 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

bill  comprised  a  little  comedy  called 
Love's  Toung  Dream  and  a  miusical 
farce  taken  from  the  French  "  Ni- 
niche/'  called  Newport.  In  the 
first  of  these  Miss  Rehan,  whose 
place  in  the  troupe  was  subordinate 
to  that  of  Catharine  Lewis,  a  sing- 
ing comedienne,  and  of  no  more 
importance  than  that  of  May  Field- 
ing, another  songstress,  Mabel  Jor- 
dan, and  some  half  dozen  others, 
was  not  too  happily  cast  as  an 
uncertain  lady  who  appeared  in 
the  scene  clad  unbecomingly  in  a 
bathing  costume.  In  Newport,  Mr. 
Drew  acted  Tom  Sanderson,  a 
bathing  master,  who  in  the  course 
of  the  proceedings  donned  female 

55 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

attire  and  assumed  an  Irish  brogue. 
Despite  the  pleasing  appearance  of 
the  house  and  the  manager's  elo- 
quent announcements  of  his  wares, 
the  public  stayed  away  from  Daly's 
Theatre  in  the  first  few  weeks  of 
its  existence  with  great  unanimity. 
Divorce,  which  had  run  all  through 
a  long  season  at  the  first  Fifth 
Avenue  Theatre,  was  put  on  for  a 
stop-gap,  and  in  this  Mr.  Drew's 
acting  of  the  meek  young  clergy- 
man, who  was  nevertheless  a  manly 
and  self-reliant  fellow,  was  excel- 
lent. In  Bronson  Howard's  Wives, 
a  showy  "  costume  "  piece,  manu- 
factured by  squeezing  together 
scenes    and    incidents    taken    from 


JOHN    DREW 

two  comedies  of  Moliere,  "  L'Ecole 
des  Maris "  and  "  L'Ecole  des 
Femmes,**  with  a  hint,  too,  of 
"  Les  Femmes  Savantes,"  Drew's 
role,  a  thankless  one,  was  Chry- 
salde,  and  Miss  Rehan  was  also  dis- 
advantageously  placed.  In  this 
entertainment  Miss  Lewis  lent  her 
attractive  comic  opera  manner  to 
the  character  of  Agnes,  Harry  Lacy 
played  Horace  gracefully  and  well, 
while  those  two  fine  old  veterans, 
Fisher  and  Davidge,  were  quite  at 
home  as  Arnolphe  and  Sganarelle. 
The  fortunes  of  the  new  theatre, 
however,  were  not  soundly  estab- 
lished by  Wives.  A  series  of  spe- 
cial  matinees,  for  the  purpose   of 

57 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

testing  the  abilities  of  the  younger 
members  of  the  company,  were 
given  early  in  the  season.  Drew, 
as  I  have  said,  was  admirably  placed 
as  loyal  young  Arnold  Brinkworth 
in  Daly's  dramatisation  of  Wilkie 
Collins's  Man  and  Wife,  in  which 
Lewis's  place  as  Sir  Patrick  Lundie 
was  taken  by  Charles  Leclercq,  and 
Mrs.  Charles  Poole  acted  the  dumb 
housekeeper,  a  picturesque  role  in 
which  Mrs.  Gilbert  had  triumphed. 
Those  two  estimable  artists,  whose 
names  are  as  closely  associated  with 
the  best  achievements  of  Augustin 
Daly  as  those  of  Drew  and  Miss  Re- 
han,  were  then  members  of  a  troupe 
managed    by    Henry     E.    Abbey. 


JOHN    DREW 

With  An  Arabian  Nighty  John 
Drew's  hour  of  triumph  had  struck 
at  last.  The  Hvely  comedy  had  a 
smart  run,  and  there  was  much  talk 
in  town  about  the  briskness,  grace, 
and  humour  of  the  young  comedian's 
denotement  of  the  shifts  and  per- 
plexities of  the  imaginative  husband 
in  his  encounters  with  a  watchful 
mother-in-law,  impersonated  spir- 
itedly by  Mrs.  Poole.  Catharine 
Lewis  was  the  fascinating  circus 
rider,  and  Charles  Leclercq  her 
protector,  the  "strong  man ;  "  while 
Miss  Rehan  had  another  quite  hope- 
less role,  as  the  ingenue  with  the 
make-believe  toothache.  When 
An    Arabian    Night    had     run    its 

59 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

course,  the  stage  of  Daly's  was 
held  for  many  weeks  by  a  musical 
burletta  or  operetta  from  the  Ger- 
man of  Genee,  called  The  Royal 
Middy,  in  which  Mr.  Drew  had  no 
part ;  but  the  last  fortnight  of  the 
season  was  made  notable  by  the 
first  appearance  together,  in  those 
**  opposite "  roles  which  they  so 
long  and  brilliantly  sustained  on 
that  stage,  of  Miss  Rehan  and 
Mr.  Drew.  The  play  was  another 
adaptation  from  the  German,  with 
the  characters  and  plot  fitted  in  an 
American  scene,  entitled  The  Way 
IVe  Live,  Miss  Rehan  was  a 
lovely  young  matron  who  de- 
voted all  her  time  to  fashionable 
60 


JOHN  DREW 
As  the  King  of  Navarre  in  "  Love's  Labour's  Lost' 


JOHN    D  R.E  W 

charities.  Mr.  Drew  was  her 
young  husband,  whose  home  was 
cheerless  and  neglected  because 
of  his  wife's  devotion  to  the  pa- 
gan and  the  poor.  After  a 
few  very  simple  complications  a 
sufficiently  plausible  and  happy 
denouement  was  reached.  To  tell 
the  truth,  The  Way  We  Live  was 
not  much  of  a  play,  and  some 
of  its  humour  was  insufferably 
juvenile ;  but  in  the  role  of  the 
young  wife  Miss  Rehan  finally 
revealed  her  fitness  for  the  work 
that  then  lay  plainly  before  her, 
and  Mr.  Drew  gave  new  evi- 
dence  of  his   ability   as    a    "  lead- 


ing     actor. 


6i 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

Miss  Rehan  had  acted  charmingly 
as  Lou  Ten  Eyck,  Miss  Daven- 
port's original  character,  in  the 
brief  revival  of  Divorce,  and  had 
shown  uncommon  power  and  a 
comprehension  of  dramatic  effect 
in  the  role  of  the  outcast,  Ruth 
Tredgett  (also  "  created "  on  the 
American  stage  by  Miss  Daven- 
port) in  Gilbert's  Charity.  In  The 
Way  We  Live,  however,  her  best 
abilities  were  indicated.  The  most 
significant  scene  in  this  comedy, 
though,  was  performed,  without 
Miss  Rehan's  aid,  by  a  child,  a 
music-box,  and  Mr.  Drew.  The 
husband  returned  from  business  late, 
just  as  his  wife  was  starting  for  a 

62 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

charitable  dinner  party  where  the 
needs  of  unconverted  savages  were 
to  be  discussed  between  the  courses. 
After  the  wife  had  gone,  the  ser- 
vants slipped  off  surreptitiously,  and 
the  father  clumsily  but  tenderly  fed 
the  little  boy,  and  then  held  him 
in  his  arms  while  the  music-box 
ironically  played  "  Home,  Sweet 
Home."  These  German  comedies 
were  always  made  a  bit  too  magnifi- 
cent pictorially  at  Daly's.  Obvi- 
ously, in  this  case,  the  German 
playwright  had  treated  of  lower 
middle  class  life,  a  humble  mer- 
chant's menage  with  one  maid  of 
all  work.  The  scenic  picture  in 
the  adaptation  was  a  splendid  room 

6^  ' 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

in  a  mansion  in  which  a  veritable 
retinue  of  servants  would  have  been 
needed.  But  the  domestic  moral 
was  still  potent,  and  the  scene 
was  remarkably  well  done  by  Mr. 
Drew. 

The  comedian  at  this  stage  of  his 
career  was  a  slender,  agile  young 
man  with  mobile  features  and  the 
springy  motion  of  a  well-trained 
athlete.  He  allowed  himself  few 
idle  moments,  and  when  not  study- 
ing or  rehearsing  a  part  (and  Mr. 
Daly  always  had  a  new  play  in 
rehearsal),  he  rode,  fenced,  boxed, 
and  studied  music  and  languages. 
He  had  come  to  a  lively  understand- 
ing of  the  seriousness  of  an  actor's 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

life,  of  the  need  of  keeping  one's 
physical  and  mental  faculties  in 
trim.  Already  he  was  beginning 
to  be  known,  in  a  small  way,  as 
a  man  whose  taste  in  dress  was 
worth  heeding.  As  an  actor,  he  was 
buoyant,  unaffected,  and  entirely 
competent  in  the  light  roles  that 
had  thus  far  fallen  to  his  share, 
though  the  notes  of  tenderness  and 
fervor  he  has  since  struck  so  surely 
were  still  a  trifle  beyond  his  reach. 
Mr.  Drew  was  married,  in  the 
spring  of  1880,  to  Miss  Josephine 
Baker,  daughter  of  Lewis  Baker, 
an  actor  of  renown,  who  died  on 
the  very  day  his  future  son-in-law 
made  his  first  appearance  on  the 
]  6^ 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

stage,  March,  1873,  ^^^  ^^^  wife, 
Alexina  Fisher,  an  actress  of  skill 
and  repute.  The  Bakers  were  a 
theatrical  family  as  renowned  as  the 
Drews,  and  Miss  Josephine  Baker 
had  been  an  actress  a  little  while 
before  her  marriage.  Compara- 
tively young  "  old  stagers  '*  may 
remember  her  as  a  remarkably 
pretty  and  taking  girl  in  the  first 
performances  of  My  Awful  Dad 
at  Wallack's.  In  the  second 
season  of  the  Florences  in  Ben 
Woolf's  comic  piece  called  The 
Mighty  Dollar,  she  was  Libbie,  — 
"  Libbie  Dear,'*  as  the  vivacious 
Mrs.  Gilflory  called  her  young 
companion. 

66 


JuHN   DREW 
As  Robin  Hood  in  "  Tlie  Foresters' 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

Prosperity  settled  upon  Daly's 
Theatre  in  its  second  season,  al- 
though the  manager's  policy  was 
still  somewhat  confused  by  his 
lingering  desire  to  establish,  as  it 
seemed,  a  new  school  of  musical 
comedy.  In  the  occasional  musi- 
cal pieces,  Mr.  Drew  had  no  parts. 
Tiote,  a  Mexican  piece  that  nobody 
who  does  not  treasure  a  collection 
of  playbills  can  remember,  and 
Our  First  Families^  a  farce  by 
Edgar  Fav/cett  which  was  very 
well  meant  but  hopelessly  barren 
of  new  ideas,  were  early  new  plays 
of  the  autumn  of  1880,  in  which 
Mr.  Drew  had  characters.  But 
presently,  in  Needles   and  Pins,  he 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

and  Miss  Rehan  were  playing  vis- 
a-vis again  to  some  good  purpose, 
and  Mrs.  Gilbert  and  James  Lewis, 
who  had  now  rejoined  their  old 
manager  to  remain  with  him  until 
death  did  them  part,  were  keeping 
them  good  company.  This  was 
the  first  of  the  comedies  from  the 
German  in  which  the  renowned 
quartet  appeared  together.  Miss 
Rehan  was  a  mischievous  miss  in 
her  teens,  and  John  Drew  the  esti- 
mable, but  merely  human,  young 
lawyer  whom  her  fresh  charms 
had  captivated.  Mrs.  Gilbert  was 
a  belated  heroine  of  romance  with 
long  yellow  pigtails  down  her  coy 
back,  and  Mr.  Lewis  was  the  pre- 

68 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

cipitate  but  elderly  and  bald- 
headed  bachelor  who  wooed  her. 
I  have  no  remembrance  of  the 
plot  of  Needles  and  Pins.  It  was 
a  formless  thing,  with  a  burden- 
some subplot  and  some  superfluous 
sentimentality,  and  it  was  found  to 
have  grown  very  old  and  feeble  in 
a  very  short  time,  after  the  manner 
of  anemic  plays,  when  acted  at  one 
of  the  fashionable  Daly  subscrip- 
tion performances  of  later  years. 
But  it  contained  some  enjoyable 
comic  scenes  for  the  quartet,  and 
it  had  a  good  run.  It  had  the 
appreciable  merit  oi  being  "  a  Daly 
play,"  unlike  plays  seen  elsewhere. 

In  the  fall  and  winter  of  1 88 1-2, 
_ 


JOHN    DREW 

both  ^itSy  from  the  German,  in 
which  Mr.  Drew  had  a  colourless 
role  as  Bob  Cayses,  and  Mr.  Faw- 
cett's  Americans  Abroad,  in  which 
he  appeared  as  Charlie  Wilks,  failed 
to  draw,  and  Mr.  Daly  fell  back 
upon  a  "  costume  "  play,  —  an  adap- 
tation of  "  La  Jeunesse  de  Louis 
XIV."  by  the  elder  Dumas,  enti- 
tled Royal  Youth.  This  had  a  mod- 
erately good  run,  but  not  much  is 
remembered  of  it  except  that  a  ribald 
reviewer  asserted  that  Mr.  Drew, 
impersonating  the  "  grand  m.on- 
arch "  in  his  youth,  resembled 
"  Buffalo  Bill  in  Pantalettes." 
Drew  recalls  this  rebuke  cheer- 
fully. He  could  always  afford  to 
70 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

take  lightly  the  few  gibes  critical 
humourists  inflicted  upon  him. 
Along  in  that  season,  The  Passing 
Regiment,  another  comedy  with  a 
German  original,  gave  the  light 
comedian  a  fairly  good  part,  though 
not  one  of  any  distinctive  quality, 
as  the  young  adjutant.  Mr.  Daly 
strained  probability  a  great  deal  in 
adapting  this  military  romance  to 
an  American  environment,  and 
making  the  basis  of  the  plot  a  visit 
to  a  fashionable  country  place  of  a 
crack  militia  regiment,  instead  of 
the  forcible  quartering  on  a  town 
of  a  detachment  of  Government 
troops.  Nothing  at  all  like  some 
of  the  happenings  depicted  in  the 

71 


J  O  H  N    D  R  E  JV 

translated  play  ever  occurred  on 
American  soil,  but  the  piece  was 
acted  briskly  and  well,  and  was  cor- 
dially received.  After  its  run,  an 
English  version  of  Sardou's  unsavory 
"  Odette,"  somewhat  doctored  and 
expurgated  to  the  weakening  of  its 
purpose,  gave  Miss  Rehan  an  oppor- 
tunity in  an  "  emotional  "  role,  for 
which  as  yet  she  lacked  a  sufficient 
measure  of  experienced  skill.  In 
this  Mr.  Drew  played  Greek  Cho- 
rus in  the  role  of  amiable,  talka- 
tive Philippe.  This  sombre  piece 
did  not  seem  to  fit  well  into  the 
repertory  of  Daly's,  yet  the  next 
season's  first  new  play.  The  Squire 
by  Arthur  W.  Pinero,  which  made 

72 


<    -J 


C    .2 

«    = 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

a  notable  hit,  was  even  more  per- 
sistently serious  than  Sardou's  rather 
superficial  study  of  social  life  in 
France  before  the  era  of  divorce. 
In  The  Squire^  the  story  of  which 
resembled  Hardy's  "  Far  From  the 
Madding  Crowd,"  though  Pinero 
insisted  that  he  had  never  read  that 
novel.  Miss  Rehan  was  an  inter- 
esting Kate  Verity,  while  Mr.  Drew 
acted  with  sufficient  fervour  the 
character  of  her  impetuous  lover. 
Lieutenant  Eric  Thorndyke.  Mr. 
Lewis  as  Gunnion,  and  Mr.  Fisher 
as  the  Mad  Parson,  equally  shared 
the  honours  with  the  principals. 
This  season,  January  15,  1883,  ^^^^ 
first   of  the  series   of  old   comedy 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

revivals  occurred.  The  play  was 
Gibber's  She  Would  and  She  Would 
Not,  written  in  imitation  of  the 
Spanish  comedy  of  Intrigue,  and 
much  shortened  and  expurgated  for 
modern  use.  In  this  Mr.  Drew's 
well-composed  and  uncommonly 
well-sustained  portrayal  of  the  fre- 
quently baffled  yet  finally  trium- 
phant lover,  Don  Philip,  was  always 
associated  with  the  sprightly  Hypo- 
lita  of  Miss  Rehan.  She  never 
appeared  as  Gibber's  masquerading 
heroine  after  Drew  left  the  com- 
pany to  become  a  star.  Each  year 
the  piece  was  revived  for  a  few  per- 
formances, the  increased  dexterity 
and  grace   of  both   portrayals  was 

74 


J  O  H  N    D  R  E  jr 

noted.  Miss  Rehan's  Hypolita,  at 
first,  was  frequently  strained  and 
hysterical.  The  role  is  exception- 
ally difficult  for  a  young  actress,  as 
Hypolita  "  strikes  twelve "  in  the 
very  beginning,  and  keeps  going 
in  the  most  buoyant  spirits  until  the 
very  end.  The  performance  gained 
greatly  in  both  discretion  and  flu- 
ency of  utterance,  in  freedom  of 
movement,  and  in  plausibility  of 
action.  It  came  to  rank  well 
among  Miss  Rehan's  best  achieve- 
ments. Don  Philip,  the  discom- 
fited cavalier,  is  not  nearly  so 
grateful  a  role.  He  is  nearly 
always  in  the  wrong ;  while  the 
madcap    who     has     donned     male 

75 


y  O  H  N    D  R  E  JV 

attire,  seemingly  to  pay  court  to 
his  fiancee,  but  really  to  prevent 
the  marriage,  and  get  Philip  for 
herself,  triumphs  in  every  climax 
save  one,  and  that  w^hen  she  has 
all  but  gained  her  end  and  is 
ready  to  capitulate.  There  was  a 
nice  feeling  for  the  antique  spirit  of 
the  old  comedy  in  Mr.  Drew's  por- 
trayal of  this  pseudo-Spanish  cava- 
lier, but  it  had  also  the  modern 
touch  of  the  humourist  who  views 
ancient  manners  with  a  purged 
vision. 

She  Would  and  She  Would  Not  gave 
way,  February  24th,  to  the  long  suc- 
cessful Seven-Twenty- Eight,  after- 
ward  acted  in   the    English    tours 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

of  the  company  under  its  sub-title 
of  Casting  a  Boomerang.  This  was 
one  of  the  brightest  of  Daly's 
adaptations  from  the  German,  and 
it  survived  many  revivals,  Court- 
ney Corliss,  however,  was  merely 
a  nice,  quick-witted  young  man  of 
that  particular  hour  in  New  York, 
and  the  part  gave  to  Mr.  Drew  no 
more  new  fame  than  attaches  to 
the  actor  of  a  role  in  a  particu- 
larly successful  and  much  talked 
of  play.  Similar  roles  were  Harry 
Latimer  in  Dollars  and  Sense,  the 
comedy,  of  the  same  general  quality 
and  the  same  nativity,  which 
opened  the  season  of  1883-4,  and 
Tom  Crayon,  the  artist,  in  the  less 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

successful  piece  called  Red  Letter 
Nights.  The  last  named  farce,  it 
was  nothing  better,  did  not  long 
survive;  but  a  romping  scene  in  it, 
in  which  Miss  Rehan  sang  and 
danced  "  Jenny  O'Jones,'*  was 
transferred  to  Dollars  and  Sense, 
which  remained  some  years  in  the 
company's  repertory.  The  old 
comedy  revival  of  this  season  was 
Garrick's  adaptation  of  Wycherley's 
quite  impossible  "  Country  Wife," 
called  The  Country  Girl,  still  further 
altered  by  Mr.  Daly,  with  a  part 
of  the  best  of  Miss  Prue's  scenes 
in  Congreve's  "  Love  for  Love  '* 
written    in.     This   still  retains   its 

place   in   Miss   Rehan's   repertory, 

_  - 


JUIIN  DKl.W 
As  Viscount  Clivebrooki-  in  "Tlie  Bauble  Shop' 


y  O  H  N    D  R  E  IF 

and  her  fairly  matchless  portrayal 
of  Peggy  Thrift  was  mated,  while 
Drew  remained  at  Daly's,  with  his 
own  capital  portrayal  of  adroit 
Belleville,  in  which  dignity  and 
grace  of  deportment  were  always 
cleverly  combined  with  a  mere 
hint,  by  way  of  spice,  of  latent 
devilishness  left  over,  perhaps,  from 
Wycherley  and  the  naughty  comedy 
of  the  Restoration. 
Before  the  Daly  company  began 
their  next  term  in  New  York,  they 
made  their  first  appearance  in  Lon- 
don in  the  little  playhouse  called 
Toole's  Theatre,  July  19,  1884,  in 
Seven-Twenty- Eight,  and  the  two 
old    comedies,   Gibber's   and    Gar- 

79 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

rick's,     forming     their    repertory. 
Two  years  later,  they  went  abroad 
again,   acting    in    London,    at    the 
Strand  Theatre,  and  in  Edinburgh, 
Dublin,  Paris,  Hamburg,  and  Ber- 
lin.    Again  in    1888,  and  again  in 
1890,  Mr.   Drew  and  his  fellow- 
comedians  acted  in  London,  in  the 
later  year  at  the  Lyceum  Theatre, 
when  they  first  appeared  in  As  Ton 
Like  It.     These  trips  abroad  con- 
tinued several  years  longer,  and  cul- 
minated in  the  building  of  Daly's 
Theatre,   Leicester  Square.     They 
gave   Mr.   Drew  a  certain  assured 
standing  as  a  dramatic  artist  in  the 
minds  of  English  and  foreign  play- 
goers ;    they   introduced   him  to  a 

80 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

large  circle  of  acquaintances  in  the 
home  and  club  life  of  London  ;  but 
he  acted  no  new  roles  abroad,  as 
the  company  produced  its  new  plays 
first  in  its  theatre  in  New  York,  and 
a  further  chronicle  of  the  doings 
of  Mr.  Daly's  comedians  abroad  is 
not  within  the  purpose  of  this 
volume. 

In  the  autumn  of  1884,  some  new 
recruits  joined  the  company,  in- 
cluding Miss  Edith  Kingdon  and 
Mr.  Otis  Skinner,  who  were  both 
brilliantly  successful  at  Daly's. 
Miss  Virginia  Dreher,  who  acted 
second  parts  to  Miss  Rehan,  had 
been  enlisted  a  year  or  so  before. 
Mr.    Frederick    Bond    was  also   a 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

new  member  of  this  season.  Mr. 
Drew's  associates  now  included, 
also,  his  veteran  friends,  Charles 
Fisher,  James  Lewis,  and  Mrs.  Gil- 
bert and  droll  and  nimble  William 
Gilbert,  who  for  some  years  was  a 
popular  favourite  in  eccentric  and 
fantastical  characters. 
May  Irwin,  since  widely  renowned 
as  a  humourist  of  variety  farce,  and 
one  of  the  regenerators  of  the 
"  Coon  song,"  belonged  to  the 
company  then,  and  new  recruits 
were  added  from  time  to  time  in 
the  next  few  years.  The  veteran 
George  Clarke,  who  had  been  so 
conspicuous  at  the  Fifth  Avenue 
Theatre,  his  skill  ripened  and  de- 
82 


J  O  H  N    D  R  EJV 

veloped  by  much  and  varied  expe- 
rience, rejoined  Mr.  Daly.  Kitty 
Cheatham,  Phcebe  Russell,  Isabel 
Irving,  Jean  Gordon,  Sydney  Her- 
bert, Herbert  Gresham,  and  Charles 
Wheatleigh  were  associates  of  Mr. 
Drew  during  much  of  his  service 
under  the  Daly  banner.  In  the 
years  that  the  sextet  of  leaders 
comprised  Drew  and  Ada  Rehan, 
Skinner  and  Virginia  Dreher,  Lewis 
and  Mrs.  Gilbert,  the  troupe  was 
absolutely  at  its  best  so  far  as  fitness 
and  harmony  of  the  personnel  were 
concerned.  From  the  time  of  the 
desertion  of  the  first  of  them, 
though  the  director's  energy,  dis- 
cipline, and   inventiveness  did  not 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

fail  him  for  many  years,  the  com- 
pany's repute  began  to  wane. 
Paul  Impulse,  in  a  transformed 
German  piece  called,  after  a  time- 
honoured  custom  of  Yale  Univer- 
sity, T/ie  Wooden  Spoon,  was  Mr. 
Drew's  first  part  this  season  of 
1884—5,  ^^^  ^^^  second  (Novem- 
ber 25th)  was  Sydney  Austin  in 
Love  on  Crutches,  a  little  comedy, 
little  in  its  subject  and  the  manner 
of  treating  it,  rather  than  its  length, 
which  still  survives  in  the  repertory 
of  Miss  Rehan.  Austin  has  written 
anonymously  a  sentimental  novel, 
and  his  wife  Annis,  dissatisfied 
with  her  domestic  surroundings, 
and  yearning  for  a  higher,  freer 
84 


JOHN   DREW 
As  Mr.  Kiln>y  in  "Tlie  Squire  of  Dumes 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

existence,  has  entered  into  a  corre- 
spondence with  the  anonymous 
author,  using  a  pseudonym  herself. 
Thus  the  spectacle  is  presented  of 
a  young  husband  and  wife,  believing 
themselves  unhappily  married,  and 
conducting  a  secret  correspondence 
with  each  other,  through  a  third 
person,  in  the  belief  that  they  have 
"  found  their  affinities."  Of  course, 
the  happy  ending  of  this  whimsi- 
cal romance  is  inevitably  in  sight 
from  the  first ;  but  there  is  no  lack 
of  animation  in  the  play,  though 
it  requires  the  daintiest  sort  of 
treatment  in  the  performance. 
This  it  received  at  Daly's  in  those 
early  days,  when   the  well   poised. 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

yet  sufficiently  sentimental  husband, 
the  dissatisfied  young  wife,  the 
common  friends  with  a  little  ro- 
mance of  their  own,  and  the  old 
couple  involved  so  comically  in 
the  proceedings,  were  acted  by 
Drew  and  Miss  Rehan,  Miss 
Kingdon  and  Skinner,  Mrs.  Gilbert 
and  Mr.  Lewis. 

Drew's  old  comedy  role  this  season 
was  Farquhar's  Captain  Plume, 
associated  with  the  fame  of  Wilks, 
Garrick,  Elliston,  and  many  other 
renowned  actors.  He  looked  par- 
ticularly well  in  his  Marlborough 
soldier  clothes,  and  bore  himself 
with  a  keen  sense  of  the  antique 
humour  of  the  Restoration  com- 
86  ~~~" 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

edy ;  but  the  spirit  of  The  Recruit- 
ing Officer,  alas,  had  fled  long  before 
Daly  tried  to  revive  it.  Gay  Jack 
Mulberry,  telling  fortunes  on  the 
cards  with  Nisbe,  helping  future 
father-in-lavi^  Babbage  w^ith  his 
play,  hobnobbing  with  Mr.  Snap, 
the  peripatetic  theatrical  manager, 
was  his  next  part  in  modern  light 
comedy  from  the  German.  A 
^ight  Off,  produced  in  March, 
1885,  easily  ran  the  season  out, 
and  bore  many  revivals ; .  but  it 
was  never  better  played,  excepting 
in  the  one  character  of  Snap,  the 
actor,  who  was  fairly  recreated 
and  made  to  live  and  breathe,  late 

in  the  history  of  Daly's,  long  after 

_ 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

Mr.  Drew  had  become  a  star,  by- 
Henry  Dixey. 

The  next  term  Drew  took  up  the 
character  of  Colonel  Lukyn,  the 
middle-aged  soldier  and  man  of 
affairs,  in  The  Magistrate  by  Pinero, 
and  his  portrayal  of  this  role,  far 
out  of  his  ordinary  line,  was  happily 
conceived,  polished  in  execution, 
delightfully  humorous  in  compo- 
sition, and  well  sustained.  His 
acting  as  Ford  in  The  Merry  Wives 
of  Windsor  []2in\i2ivy  14,  1886)  was 
correct  in  form,  graceful  in  bearing, 
though  scarcely  formidable  in  its 
expression  of  passion ;  but  the  pro- 
duction of  the  mirthful  Nancy  & 
Co.,  Daly's  clever  version  of  Julius 

88 


y  O  H  N    D  R  E  JV 

Rosen's  "  He  Pursues  His  Runa- 
way Wife,"  less  than  a  month  later, 
gave  him  an  admirable  opportunity 
in  his  accustomed  field  of  light  com- 
edy. This,  in  spite  of  its  obvious 
caricature  of  life,  always  seemed  to 
me  the  very  best  of  the  lighter  and 
more  farcical  pieces  in  the  Daly 
repertory.  There  is  a  touch  of 
poetry  in  it,  missing  in  all  the 
others,  and  it  has  a  perceptible 
emotional  lift  in  the  last  act.  Mr. 
Drew  always  gave  due  force  to  the 
broadly  comic  scenes  of  Keefe 
O'Keefe,  the  young  dramatist  whose 
collaboration  with  wilful  Nancy 
Brasher  gets  him  into  a  peck  of 
trouble,    without     sacrificing     ele- 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

gance  and  grace  in  bearing  and 
diction. 

Brandagee,  in  After  Business  Hours 
(October  5,  1886),  was  not  a  bad 
sort  of  a  part.  The  comedy  was 
by  Blumenthal,  and  it  lacked  vital- 
ity, and  only  one  scene  played  by 
Lewis,  Drew,  and  Miss  Rehan, 
counted  for  very  much.  In  Love 
in  Harness,  which  followed,  though. 
Drew  had  a  congenial  and  effective 
role  as  Frederick  Urquhart,  the 
young  husband  of  a  frivolous  wife. 
At  that  stage  of  his  career  he  had 
done  nothing  better  than  his  act- 
ing in  the  vivacious  "  quarrel " 
scenes  of  this  comedy,  which  was 
an    adaptation    of    "  Le     Bonheur. 

90 


JOHN   DKKW  AND  MAUDK  ADAMS 
As  Sir  Ja!'];fr  .'ind  Dolly  in  "  Ro  cmary  " 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

Conjugal "  by  Albin  Valabregue. 
There  was  an  undercurrent  of  ear- 
nestness in  his  acting  that  height- 
ened the  humorous  effect.  In  one 
episode  he  pictured  a  paroxysm  of 
jealous  rage  in  a  manner  that  would 
have  done  credit  to  the  actor  of 
Ben  Jonson's  Kitely.  He  took 
still  another  step  upward  and  for- 
ward when  (January  1 8,  1887) 
Mr.  Daly  put  forward  The  Taming 
of  the  Shrew,  Induction  and  all, 
and  marked  pleasantly  an  epoch 
in  Shakespearean  revivals.  This 
was  in  every  respect  a  superb  work 
of  dramatic  art,  and  will  always  be 
remembered  to  the  credit  of  the 
American     stage.       Miss     Rehan's 

91 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

Katharine  has  since  been  her  fore- 
most role.  She  is  Katharine,  and  she 
fairly  recreated  the  Shrew  Shake- 
peare  found  in  Elizabethan  drama 
and  illumined  with  the  touch  of 
his  own  mighty  genius.  Associated 
with  this  portrayal,  in  her  earliest 
and  best  performances,  was  the 
picturesque,  sufficiently  forcible, 
graceful,  humorous  Petruchio  of 
John  Drew,  —  a  lover  as  well  as  a 
wife-tamer,  a  philosopher  as  well 
as  a  jester. 


92 


J  O  H  N    D  R  EJV 

i^  Part  Third 

jL  S  bilious  Major  Tarver,  in 
/  ^  Pinero's  ingenious  and 
1  m,  witty  comic  play  called 
Dandy  Dick,  in  the  autumn  of 
1887,  Mr.  Drew  exhibited  again, 
though  briefly,  for  the  frequenters 
of  Daly's  did  not  care  much  for 
the  piece,  his  talent  in  the  compo- 
sition of  eccentric  character  and 
his  powers  of  broadly  humorous 
expression.  The  personage  seems 
to  have  been  suggested  by  current 
fiction  and  the  fun  of  the  role  bor- 
ders on  caricature.  When  Dandy 
Dick  was  recently  revived  in  Lon- 

93 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

don,  complaint  wasmade  that  some 
of  its  characterisation  was  sadly  old- 
fashioned' and  extravagant.  Cari- 
cature does  not  wear  well,  but 
when  the  play  was  new.  Major 
Tarver  seemed  a  delightfully  droll 
fellow.  He  belonged  exactly  to 
that  hour.  Restricted  by  popular 
demand,  as  it  seems,  to  a  narrow 
line  of  characters  calling  for  small 
display  of  versatility,  Mr.  Drew  has 
yet,  in  these  later  years  of  his  suc- 
cessful career,  lent  all  possible 
variety  to  his  impersonations.  In 
the  era  in  which  his  father  won 
renown,  he  would  have  acted  a 
wider  range  of  parts.  Petruchio 
and   Benedick,    Mirabel   and   Don 

94 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

Philip,  would  still  have  been  in 
his  repertory,  but  he  might,  for  a 
change,  have  taken  up  the  part  of 
Trapanti,  in  which  the  elder  Drew 
excelled,  and  which  Mr.  Lewis 
acted  so  amusingly  according  to  his 
lights.  He  might,  occasionally, 
have  acted  Melancholy  Jaques, 
to  contrast  with  his  eloquent 
Orlando,  while  a  comedian  of  his 
intellectual  equipment  and  person- 
ality might  fairly  recreate  the  role 
of  Touchstone,  —  that  philosopher 
in  motley,  who  has  latterly  been 
turned  over  altogether  to  the  low 
comedy  man. 

After  the  cynicism  of  Dandy  Dick 
that  autumn,  came  the  sentiment  of 


95 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

The  Railroad  of  Love,  taken  from 
"  Goldfische,"  by  Rosen.  This 
comedy,  which  had  but  little 
verity  as  a  picture  of  possible  hap- 
penings in  American  society,  was 
nevertheless  received  with  enthu- 
siasm and  held  the  stage  some 
months.  Drew  was  Lieutenant 
Howell  Everett  and  Miss  Rehan 
was  Val  Osprey.  Many  other  good 
actors  were  in  the  cast,  and  the 
plot  was  complex  enough  to  give 
them  fairly  interesting  and  impor- 
tant parts,  but  these  two,  as  usual, 
were  the  central  figures.  She  was 
a  widow,  lovely  and  experienced 
in  coquetry  ;  he  was  an  irresistible 
young  army  officer,  expert  in  the 

96 


^                        ^^Stf^^^'^K' 

_^Sff^^                 ^BP^* 

JOHN  DREW 
As  the  Comte  de  Cfar.dale  in  "  A  Marriage  of  Convenience  " 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

subtle  arts  of  the  lady-killer.  They 
had  met  briefly  before,  but  the  gen- 
tleman did  not  immediately  rec- 
ognise the  lady  when  they  were 
introduced  at  Miss  Van  Ryker's  ball. 
She  remembered  him  vividly,  how- 
ever, and  could  not  suppress  her 
smiles  when  she  recalled  him  in 
the  act  of  captivating  two  simple 
little  frauleins  in  a  German  railway 
carriage.  They  flirted,  of  course. 
He  employed  all  his  arts,  but  she 
outwitted  him.  Then  chance,  or 
Cupid,  favoured  him,  and  she  was 
defeated.  It  was  at  first  a  merry 
war  of  wit  and  mock  sentiment,  but 
before  two  days  had  passed  they 
were  desperately   in   love.      Then, 

7  97 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

before  they  fully  understood  each 
other,  that  venomous  reptile.  Jeal- 
ousy, had  crept  across  their  flower- 
strewn  path,  and  when  it  had 
slinked  out  of  sight  again,  the 
woman  had  written  a  letter  that 
had  to  be  recalled  before  he  knew 
of  its  existence  and  she  was  at  her 
wit's  end  to  accomplish  this  pur- 
pose. There  was  a  scene,  then,  full 
of  passion  and  hysterical  emotion, 
which  lifted  the  comedy  far  above 
the  level  of  frivolous  entertainment. 
The  picture  of  Drew  and  Miss 
Rehan  exchanging  soft  words  from 
either  side  of  a  half-open  boudoir 
door  remains  vividly  in  the  memory 
of  folks  who  saw  The  Railroad  of 
98 


J  O  H  N    D  R  E  JV 

Love  when  it  was  a  new  play. 
The  scene,  too,  in  which  Drew,  as 
the  blind  slave  of  Love,  sat  obedi- 
ently and  patiently  bending  over 
an  embroidery  frame  and  bungling 
the  stitches,  "  one,  two,  three, 
four,  cross,"  was  novel  and  taking. 
Drew  portrayed  the  young  Lieu- 
tenant in  a  graceful  and  easy  man- 
ner exactly  fitting  the  character, 
and  in  the  serious  passages  revealed 
the  strength  of  an  inherently  noble 
nature. 

As  the  "  spotted  and  inconstant  '* 
Demetrius  in  the  elaborate  and 
costly  production  of  A  MidsumtJier 
Nighfs  Dream  (January  31,  1889), 
Drew  was   as   picturesque,   ardent, 

99 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

and  gallant  as  need  be  and  seemed 
to  get  as  far  as  possible  away  from 
his  usual  manner.  Then,  as  always, 
his  reading  of  the  verse  was  fluent 
and  correct  and  governed  by  a  per- 
fect sense  of  melody.  In  the  next 
Fall  his  portrayal  of  Adolphus 
Doubledot  in  T/ie  Lottery  of  Love 
at  Dalv's  was  coincident  with 
Constant  Coquelin's  acting  of  the 
French  equivalent  in  the  original 
piece  by  MM.  Bisson  and  Mars, 
"  Les  Surprises  du  Divorce,"  at 
Palmer's  across  the  street.  Neither 
comedian  advanced  an  artistic  step 
because  of  this  role,  but  both  acted 
with  excellent  humour  and  vivacity, 
and    there   were   many   intelligent 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

theatre-goers  who  actually  preferred 
the  lighter,  daintier  touch  of  Drew 
to  the  broad,  rather  violent  manner 
which  the  various-voiced  Coquelin 
found  suitable  to  this  extravagant 
farce.  In  this  season  John  Drew 
acted  Young  Mirabel  to  the  lovely 
Oriana  of  Miss  Rehan.  It  seems 
all  but  impossible  to  galvanise  the 
comedies  of  Farquhar  into  life, 
though  I  fancy  that  in  this  particu- 
lar hour  something  might  be  done 
with  his  mellow  masterwork.  The 
Beaux*  Stratagem.  The  Inconstant ^ 
like  so  many  other  famous  old 
plays,  contains  only  one  vitally 
strong  situation,  and  that  in  the 
very  last  scene.      But  Drew's  por- 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

trayal  of  the  scapegrace  of  the  era  of 
Queen  Anne  was  of  quite  uncom- 
mon pictorial  and  dramatic  interest, 
and  at  that  time,  next  after  his 
Petruchio,  his  most  successful  ven- 
ture in  the  field  of  romantic  com- 
edy. He  presented  Mirabel  as  a 
blithesome  and  elegant  fellow,  full 
of  sentiment  which  his  idea  of  manly 
honour  impels  him  to  conceal. 
Clive,  Lord  Ravenstoke,  in  a  flat 
and  tedious  but  splendidly  mounted 
play  from  the  German  called  An 
International  Match^  that  vrinter, 
showed  the  growth  of  the  come- 
dian's skill  in  depicting  the  per- 
fect breeding  and  savoir  faire  of 
a   man   of  the    fashionable    world. 

I02 


JOHN  DREW 
As  Sir  Christopher  IV-ering  in  "Tue  Liars' 


J  O  H  N    D  R  E  IF 

I  remember  the  acting  of  a  little 
scene,  a  mere  excerpt  of  social  rou- 
tine, by  Mrs.  Gilbert  and  Drew, 
that  was  positively  exquisite  in  its 
denotement  of  the  manners  of  good 
society.  But  this  and  many  of  his 
other  roles  in  modern  plays  during 
the  remainder  of  his  stay  with  "  the 
Governor  "  were  but  trivial.  T/ie 
Golden  Widow,  Sardou's  unsavoury 
"Marquise,"  shorn  of  nearly  all  its 
vicious  meaning,  gave  him  no  chance 
at  all ;  while  as  Cousin  Ned  in  The 
Great  Unknown  ("  Die  Beruhmte 
Frau"),  he  was  limited  practically 
to  one  charming  scene  of  love- 
making.  Orlando  fell  to  his  share 
(and  his  acting  of  the  gallant, 
103 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

gentle  lover  largely  increased  his 
repute  among  persons  of  artistic 
discernment  both  here  and  in  Lon- 
don), December  17,  1889,  and 
along  in  that  winter  he  appeared 
as  the  young  French  advocate 
whose  pretty  mother-in-law  makes 
much  trouble  for  him  innocently 
in  A  Priceless  Paragon,  which  was 
taken  from  the  "  Belle  Maman  " 
of  Sardou  and  Raymond  Deslandes. 
In  the  recurrence  of  Von  Moser's 
Haroiin  al  Paschid,  this  time  in  a 
version  by  Sydney  Grundy,  the 
same  spring,  he  easily  carried  off 
the  honours  again ;  but  in  New 
Lamps  for  Old,  a  play  by  Jerome 
Jerome  that  was  not  a  play  at  all, 
104 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

the  next  October,  he  had  nothing 
to  do  worth  doing.  His  best  new 
role  in  modern  comedy  this  season 
was  Harry  Rutherell  in  The  Last 
Word,  which  was  a  comedy  of  the 
quality  of  The  Railroad  of  Love. 
Harry  was  the  "  woman  hater  '* 
of  all  sentimental  romance,  trans- 
formed, of  course,  into  a  lover. 
His  old  comedy  role  at  this  time 
was  Charles  Surface  in  The  School 
for  Scandal,  January  21,  1891. 
This  portrayal  was  a  revelation  of 
unexpected  qualities  in  the  equip- 
ment of  this  fine  comedian.  So 
much  vivacity,  so  much  sparkle,  in 
his  denotement  of  high  spirits  were 
scarcely   expected   of   him.     That 

105 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

his  Charles  Surface  should  lack 
neither  the  elegance  of  polite 
breeding  nor  personal  grace  was 
not  surprising.  His  delivery  of 
Sheridan's  text  was  expected  to  be 
both  precise  and  fluent,  but  the 
freedom  and  dash  of  his  acting 
carried  all  before  him  and  made 
Charles,  indeed,  the  hero  of  the 
play.  Since  Lester  Wallack's  prime 
there  have  come  under  my  notice 
only  two  impersonations  of  Charles 
fit  to  compare  with  this ;  namely, 
Charles  Coghlan's  and  that  of  a 
young  actor  who  did  not  live  to 
reach  the  fulness  of  his  powers, 
Harry  Hitchcock  Murdoch,  who 
lost  his  life  in  the  burning  of  the 
1 06 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

Brooklyn  Theatre.  The  charm  of 
Murdoch's  Charles,  which  would 
have  become  an  impersonation  of 
rare  merit,  was  in  its  consistent  buoy- 
ancy rather  than  its  elegance.  His 
volley  of  merry  and  infectious 
laughter  after  the  fall  of  the  screen 
still  lingers  in  my  ears.  Coghlan 
acted  here  with  his  customary  re- 
serve of  force,  while  Drew's  Charles 
bore  himself  gaily  but  with  an  ob- 
vious sense  of  the  pity  of  Lady 
Teazle's  predicament.  I  am  in- 
clined to  think  that  Murdoch's  was 
the  right,  the  Sheridan,  reading  of 
the  scene. 

Late  in  the  spring  of  1891,   Mr. 

Drew  acted  the   King  of  Navarre 

107 


J  O  H  N    D  RETF 

in  Mr.  Daly's  second  revival  of 
Love's  Labour 's  Lost,  a  play  which 
no  other  American  manager  ever 
dared  to  touch.  With  its  dainty 
setting  and  some  good  acting,  this 
early  satire  of  euphemism  was  to 
me  much  more  interesting  than 
l^he  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  ever 
is  in  these  days,  except  in  Verdi's 
musical  setting,  in  which  the  Fal- 
stafF  of  Victor  Maurel  is  the  best 
Falstaff  this  age  has  seen.  But  it 
would  be  folly  to  consider  the  King 
of  Navarre  an  important  role  in  the 
career  of  a  famous  comedian.  A 
few  nights  of  Pinero's  delicate 
humour  in  T^he  Cabinet  Minister, 
which    utterly   failed   of  apprecia- 

io8 


JOHN"  DRi:\V  AND  BLANCHE  BURTON 
As  SirChrisiophfi-  Deei  ing  and  Mrs.  Ebernoe  in  "  The  Liars" 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

tion,  gave  Drew  small  opportunity 
in  the  role  of  young  Valentine 
White,  but  he  found  a  more 
taking  character  in  Love  in  Tan- 
deniy  which  was  founded  on  "  La 
Vie  a  Deux"  of  MM.  Bocage  and 
de  Courcy.  Richard  Tompkinson 
Dymond  was  an  impossible  fellow 
who  might  easily  have  been  made 
intolerable.  Drew  made  him  com- 
panionable and  suggested  humor- 
ously the  workings  of  a  rather  slow 
mind.  His  last  role  at  Daly's,  in 
the  spring  of  1892,  was  Robin 
Hood  in  Lord  Tennyson's  dra- 
matic poem  called  The  Foresters, 
Miss  Rehan  as  Marian,  Miss  Cheat- 
ham as  Kate,  with  her  lovely  song 
109 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

of  the  bee,  Mr.  Gresham  as  Little 
John,  had  the  most  taking  parts  in 
this.  Mr.  Drew's  success  was  chiefly 
that  of  tasteful  elocution,  correct 
bearing,  and  a  fine  sense  of  pictorial 
effect. 


no 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

^  Part  Fourth 

MR.  DREW  began  his 
work  as  a  star  actor 
under  the  management 
of  Charles  Frohman,  at  Palmer's 
Theatre,  New  York,  October  3, 
1892.  His  play  was  The  Masked 
Ball,  adapted  from  the  French  of 
Bisson  by  Mr.  Clyde  Fitch,  not  an 
important  piece  or  one  whose  inci- 
dents remain  vividly  in  the  memory, 
but  one  which  served-  its  purpose 
well  all  through  the  comedian's 
first  tour  with  his  own  company. 
There  was  a  great  and  enthusiastic 
crowd  in  the  theatre  that  note- 
1 1 1 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

worthy  "  first  night"  to  give  the  new 
star  a  "send  off/'  and  no  chronic 
grumbler  in  the  cause  of  dramatic 
art  could  rationally  protest  against 
the  encouragement  given  to  him. 
The  enthusiastic  admiration  of  the 
best  sort  of  American  playgoers 
for  Mr.  Drew  and  his  acting  has 
not  diminished  in  the  eight  years 
that  have  since  elapsed.  That 
"  first  night,"  after  the  merry 
penultimate  climax  of  the  Bisson 
farce,  the  comedian  was,  of  course, 
summoned  before  the  curtain.  A 
part  of  his  modest  speech  is  worth 
a  place  in  this  permanent  record  of 
his  career :  — 


J  O  H  N    D  R  E  JV 

"  It  is  trite  and  hackneyed,  perhaps,  to 
allude  to  a  particular  time  as  the  proud- 
est and  happiest  moment  in  one's  life, 
but  if  ever  phrase  were  apt  for  an  occa- 
sion, I  feel  that  particular  one  is  befit- 
ting this  moment.  This  splendid 
welcome  accorded  to  me  by  you  — 
kind  friends  rather  than  spectators  or 
auditors,  who  have  with  your  plaudits 
and  consideration  encouraged  me  for  so 
many  years  in  the  past  —  makes  this, 
indeed,  a  proud  and  happy  moment  for 
me. 

"  But  I  feel  that  all  these  plaudits  and 
this  great  greeting  might  not  have  been 
for  me  had  it  not  been  for  one  who 
taught  me  how  to  merit  and  deserve  them 
—  who  from  the  beginning  of  my  career 
has  watched  and  guided  my  steps, 
smoothing  the  way  to  success  for  me, 
8  113 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

and  encouraging  me  in  moments  of 
trial  and  discouragerhent,  and,  in  fine, 
striving  to  make  me  worthy  of  this 
honour  to-night. 

"  I  feel,  too,  that  this  poor  and  halting 
tribute  of  the  heart  is  littl-e  to  offer 
after  the  years  of  care  and  trouble  he 
has  bestowed  on  me,  but  it  is  from  the 
heart,  and  I  wish  to  offer  it.  I  am  glad, 
too,  to  offer  it  before  you,  —  his  friends 
as  well  as  mine.  I  see  that  I  need  not 
name  him,  —  my  friend  and  preceptor, 
—  Mr.  Augustin  Daly." 

In  The  Masked  Ball  that  charming 
young  actress,  Miss  Maude  Adams, 
began  an  artistic  association  with 
Mr.  Drew  which  lasted  nearly  five 
years.  Her  mock  drunken  scene,  in 
the  role  of  Suzanne,  the  young  wife 

114 


JOHN  JJKfclW,  IDA  CONQULST  AND  ARTHUR  liVROxV 
In  "The  Tyranny  of  Tears" 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

of  the  scapegrace,  bent  on  teaching 
him  a  wholesome  lesson,  was  exqui- 
sitely delicate  and  humorous.  As 
Paul  Blondet,  Drew  was  again  the 
light  comedy  protagonist  of  a  whole 
school  of  farces,  but  the  dexterity 
and  spirit  of  his  acting  were  suf- 
cient  to  make  the  conventional 
matter  effective.  Of  course,  one 
does  not  leave  a  performance  of 
farce  of  this  quality  with  the  feel- 
ing of  satisfaction  engendered  by  a 
performance  of  genuine  comedy. 
The  afterglow  is  nothing.  The 
farce  dies  as  the  curtain  falls.  One 
has  laughed  heartily  and  that  is  all. 
Yet  the  choice  of  this  purely  comic 
piece  for  the  beginning  of  Drew's 

115 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

new  venture  was  justified,  and  nearly 
eighteen  months  elapsed  before  the 
comedian  required  another  play. 
In  the  same  theatre,  February  6, 
1894,  he  appeared  as  Frederick 
Ossian  in  a  slight  comedy  by  Mr. 
Henry  Guy  Carleton  called  Butter- 
flies. In  this  the  subject  was  Amer- 
ican, and  so,  in  every  respect,  was 
the  treatment  of  it.  Frederick 
Ossian  was  a  heedless,  well-bred 
young  man,  suddenly  sobered  by 
his  realisation  that  the  course  of 
true  love  does  not  run  smooth 
—  and  by  his  tailor.  He  was  in 
love,  and  he  was  in  debt.  His 
love  seemed  to  be  hopeless,  and 
he  could  not  pay  his  debts.  But 
n6 


y  O  H  N    D  R  E  IV 

presently  he  went  to  work,  and 
then  his  love  was  rewarded.  Inci- 
dentally he  was  shown  to  be 
capable  of  forbearance  and  self- 
sacrifice.  This  fragile  piece  was 
still  something  much  better  than 
horseplay  farce,  and  it  served  the 
comedian  well  for  more  than  a 
year.  The  triumph  in  it,  in  an 
exceedingly  grateful  part,  of  Miss 
Olive  May  was  an  incident  which, 
as  contemporaneous  stage  history 
goes,  may  fairly  be  called  histori- 
cal. Butterflies  had  been  performed 
by  Drew  and  his  company  in  other 
cities  before  it  was  seen  in  New 
York,  and  this  was  afterward  the 
case  with  other  plays  of  his  reper- 
117 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

tory,  but  only  the  dates  of  the 
metropolitan  first  performances  are 
given  here. 

A  much  graver,  if  not  positively  a 
more  serious  work  was  The  Bauble 
Shop  by  Henry  Arthur  Jones,  the 
English  playwright,  which  served 
Mr.  Drew  so  well  the  following 
season.  The  argument  in  this  was 
that  the  private  immoralities  of  a 
statesman's  life  may  be  used  by  his 
enemies  to  defeat  and  humiliate 
him  in  public  life,  and  the  argu- 
ment is  unanswerable.  The  piece 
seemed  to  hit  the  public  fancy  here 
rather  more  surely  than  in  London, 
as  its  extravagances  of  detail  were 
not    noticed    on    this   side    of  the 

ii8 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

Atlantic,  where,  for  poetical  pur- 
poses, the  tower  of  Westminster  is 
as  far  off  as  the  minarets  of  Constan- 
tinople or  the  Egyptian  Pyramids. 
The  first  half  of  the  play  was  very 
interesting,  while  the  second  half 
was  not  quite  feeble  and  inconsis- 
tent enough  to  ruin  it.  There  was 
a  great  deal  of  merit  in  Mr.  Drew's 
portrayal  of  Viscount  Clivebrook, 
the  leader  of  the  party  in  power, 
a  cynical,  brilliant  statesman  of 
forty  odd  years,  who  rashly  falls 
in  love  with  the  daughter  of  a 
drunken  toy-maker.  His  acting 
was  distinguished  by  dignity  of 
bearing,  graceful  vivacity,  ner- 
vous force,  and  an  adequate  meas- 
119 


JOHN    DREW 

ure  of  dramatic  power.  Maude 
Adams  as  the  drunkard's  innocent 
daughter  acted  a  rather  conven- 
tional role  so  well  as  to  make  it 
seem  lifelike,  while  Elsie  de  Wolfe, 
J.  E.  Dodson,  Arthur  Byron,  Harry 
Harwood,  and  Frank  Lamb,  who 
has  been  concerned  in  every  play 
in  which  Mr.  Drew  has  starred, 
lent  efficient  assistance.  There  were 
no  "  great  moments  "  in  The  Bauble 
Shopy  however,  and  it  contained  at 
least  one  positively  repellent  scene. 
Mr.  Drew's  New  York  headquar- 
ters had  been  transferred,  by  Mr. 
Frohman,  with  the  production 
of  Jones's  drama  from  Palmer's  to 
the    more    modern    and     beautiful 


y  O  H  N    D  R  E  fF 

Empire  Theatre,  and  here  he  began 
his  next  nietropoHtan  engagement 
in  the  following  autumn,  the  play- 
being  T/iat  Imprudent  Toung  Couple, 
by  the  author  of  "  Butterflies," 
which  Drew  and  his  company  had 
tried  in  a  rural  theatre  the  previous 
spring  under  the  name  of  The  Love 
Knot.  In  this  Mr.  Carleton  had 
endeavoured  to  secure  the  same 
effect  of  thistle-down  lightness 
he  had  produced  in  his  former 
comedy,  but  his  material  barely 
served  for  one  interesting  act,  and 
the  piece  failed  to  draw.  All  the 
same,  it  contained  a  scene  for  Mr. 
Drew  and  Miss  Adams  in  Act  I. 
which  I  like  to  remember,  while  its 

121 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

starting-point,  the  failure  of  John 
Annesley  to  post  two  letters  his 
bride  had  entrusted  to  him,  was  a 
promising  beginning  for  light  com- 
edy. That  Imprudent  Toung  Couple, 
however,  soon  gave  place  to  Made- 
line Lucette  Ryley's  amusing  play, 
an  "actor's  play"  if  there  ever  was 
one,  called  Christopher,  Jr.,  which 
was  chuck  full  of  good  situations 
and  bright  dialogue,  but  defied  life, 
probability,  and  the  laws  of  dra- 
matic construction  in  every  scene. 
Both  Mr.  Drew  and  Miss  Adams 
had  grateful  roles,  and  the  other 
members  of  the  company  were  well 
suited.  Christopher,  "Jr.,  was  first 
acted  at  the  Empire  Theatre,  Octo- 

1  22 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

ber  7,  1895,  ^^^  ^^  ^^^  been  in 
the  comedian's  repertory  the  pre- 
vious season  and  had  received  many 
performances  in  other  cities.  For 
that  reason,  another  play  was  needed 
immediately,  and,  January  20,  1896, 
Mr.  Drew  began  a  midwinter  en- 
gagement at  Palmer's,  presenting 
Richard  C.  Carton's  smart  adapta- 
tion of  "L' Ami  des  Femmes,"  by 
Dumas  fils,  called  The  Squire  of 
Dames,  Mr.  Kilroy,  the  equiva- 
lent of  the  French  meddler  with 
pathological  ideas,  could  have  found 
no  better  representative  on  our  stage 
than  Drew,  and  his  refinement  and 
personal  humour  made  the  adapta- 
tion enjoyable,  though  Mr.  Carton 
123 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

kept  himself  safely  many  miles 
from  the  psycho-physiology  of  the 
original  author.  In  fact,  smartly 
written  talk  was  the  best  feature  of 
The  Squire  of  Dames,  and  its  marital 
and  social  problem,  in  the  circum- 
stances, happily  went  for  nothing. 
Rosemary,  the  following  season, 
introduced  Mr.  Drew  once  again 
as  a  bachelor  of  forty  odd  reclaimed 
from  cynicism  and  roistering  by 
the  power  of  love.  Rosemary,  by 
L.  N.  Parker  and  Murray  Carson, 
was  not  a  great  or  profound  work, 
not  exceedingly  witty  or  very  well 
made,  but  it  was  sweet  and  piquant 
with  a  touch  or  two  of  genuine 
feeling    that     caused     sympathetic 

124 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

throbs  in  the  spectator's  bosom. 
No  other  actor  of  this  hour  could 
have  played  Sir  Jasper  Thorndyke 
so  well  as  Drew,  taking  the  por- 
trayal as  a  whole.  He  was  delight- 
fully light  and  airy  in  the  gay 
passages,  he  was  always  essentially 
the  man  of  the  world,  he  composed 
with  admirable  skill  the  picture  of 
senility  in  the  last  act  or  epilogue. 
Sir  Jasper,  in  his  middle  years,  fell 
in  with  a  pair  of  eloping  lovers, 
and  presently  gave  his  heart  with- 
out the  asking  to  the  girl,  who  was 
very  sweet  and  ingenuous  and  trusted 
him  implicitly.  But,  after  a  severe 
struggle  with  his  passion,  Jasper 
saw  her  happily  united  with  Ensign 
125 


y  O  H  N    D  R  E  PF 

Westwood,  her  young  lover,  and 
returned  to  his  bachelor  ways,  to 
live  many  years  after  Westwood 
and  his  wife  had  departed  this  life, 
and  to  find,  by  a  strange  accident, 
a  souvenir  of  his  little  romance  with 
Dolly,  the  day  of  the  Queen's  Jubi- 
lee, in  that  very  inn  whither  he  had 
taken  her  to  see  the  Coronation 
procession.  Miss  Adams,  who  was 
then  in  her  last  year  as  a  member 
of  Drew's  company,  had  at  that 
time  never  appeared  to  better  ad- 
vantage than  in  the  role  of  Dorothy 
Cruickshank.  In  this  play,  too, 
Mr.  Drew's  niece.  Miss  Ethel  Barry- 
more,  who  had  borne  a  thankless 
part  in  Mr.  Carleton's  piece  the 
126 


MISS  ETHEL  BARRVMORE 


J  O  H  N    D  R  E  fV 

year  before,  made  her  first  little 
hit  in  the  character  of  a  rustic 
serving-maid. 

In  November,  1897,  at  the  Empire 
Theatre,  Mr.  Drew  and  his  fellow- 
actors  presented  themselves  in  a 
sword  and  periwig  comedy  called  A 
Marriage  of  Convenience ,  adapted  by 
Sydney  Grundy  from  "  Un  Mariage 
sous  Louis  XV."  The  play  turned 
out  to  be  fragile  but  pretty,  and 
the  performance  was  adroit  and 
graceful.  The  scenic  setting,  com- 
prising a  single  interior,  with 
painted  panels,  and  the  ornate 
gilding  and  furniture  belonging 
to  the  epoch  represented,  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
127 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

could  not  have  been  surpassed.  In 
the  costuming  no  detail  had  been 
omitted,  from  the  cut  of  a  brocade 
coat  to  the  fashion  of  a  snuff-box 
or  the  design  of  the  silver  embroi- 
dery on  the  back  of  a  glove.  Pow- 
der and  patches,  court  swords  and 
cocked  hats,  elegant  manners  with 
a  hint  of  lamentable  morals, — 
those  were  the  important  concomi- 
tants of  A  Marriage  of  Convenience. 
There  was  scarcely  more  than  one 
grave  speech  in  this  play,  which 
was  nearly  all  talk,  like  a  comedy 
of  Congreve,  which,  by  the  way,  it 
sometimes  resembled  in  form,  if  not 
in  substance.  In  the  French  origi- 
nal the  elder  Dumas  seems  to  have 
128 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

used  Marivaux  as  his  model.  Mr. 
Drew  embodied  with  all  needful 
dignity  and  buoyancy  the  young 
Comte  de  Candale,  who  fell  in 
love  with  his  young  wife  less 
than  three  days  after  the  wed- 
ding, while  Miss  Isabel  Irving, 
making  her  first  appearance  as  Mr. 
Drew's  leading  actress,  imperso- 
nated the  young  Comtesse  with 
delightful  charm.  They  had 
often  acted  in  the  same  plays  at 
Daly's,  and  she  had  played  vis- 
a-vis to  him  in  The  Cabinet 
Minister.  The  inevitable  waiting- 
maid —  the  Dorine  of  French 
classical  comedy — was  portrayed 
with    much  facility  of  expression 

9  129 


J  O  H  N    D  R  E  PF 

and  a  nice  sense  of  pictorial  effect 
by  Elsie  de  Wolfe. 
Of  less  interest  both  pictorially  and 
dramatically  was  One  Summer's  Day, 
a  comedy,  or  rather  a  serio-comic 
play,  compounded  not  too  cleverly 
of  the  elements  of  farce,  melodrama, 
and  comedy,  by  a  young  English 
actor,  Henry  V.  Esmond,  who  has 
since  won  substantial  recognition 
as  a  playwright.  In  this  Mr. 
Drew  acted  Major  Dick  Rudyard, 
a  self-sacrificing  bachelor,  who  is 
consoled  by  the  triumph  of  Love 
for  many  grievances,  at  Wallack's 
Theatre  in  February,  1898,  but  a 
livelier  piece  was  the  one-act  com- 
edy by  Theyre  Smith,  author  of 
130 


J  O  H  N    DREW 


"My  Uncle's  Will,"  called  Mrs. 
Hilary  Regrets,  in  which  Mr.  Drew 
and  Miss  Adams  appeared  at  a  bene- 
fit that  winter  and  in  which  he 
has  since  acted  with  Miss  Irving. 
This  piece  concerns  the  courting 
of  a  pretty  widow  by  a  rather  dense, 
slow-thinking  Irish  physician.  Mr. 
Drew's  brogue,  though  not  often 
put  to  use,  was  always  as  good  as 
John  Brougham's. 
The  Drew  play  for  the  whole  the- 
atrical season  of  1898-99  was  The 
Liars,  a  sparkling  comedy  by  Henry 
Arthur  Jones,  in  which  the  come- 
dian had  a  particularly  good  part  as 
the  deus  ex  machina,  the  friend  of 
everybody,  the  preserver  of  family 

131 


J  O  H  N    D  R  E  TV 

honour.  Sir  Christopher  Deering. 
Sir  Kit,  take  him  for  all  in  all,  was  a 
capital  fellow,  cool-headed,  sound- 
hearted,  practical,  amiable,  of  ripe 
and  varied  experience,  endowed 
with  fine  perceptions  and  good 
taste.  He  had  one  telling  speech 
in  the  last  act,  —  a  speech  full  of 
subtle  changes  of  mood,  though  the 
speaker  was  dominated  throughout 
by  one  earnest  purpose,  —  which 
must  have  been  one  of  the  longest 
speeches  in  recent  drama.  In  this 
Sir  Kit,  who  had  been  devoting  his 
time  and  ingenuity  for  four  days 
and  four  acts  to  a  seemingly  futile 
attempt  to  prevent  the  elopement 
of  his  closest   friend  with  the  silly 

132 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

young  wife  of  a  common  acquaint- 
ance, confronted  the  erring  couple 
in  his  apartment.  The  hour  was 
late,  and  Kit  was  getting  ready  to 
start  for  Africa  to  rejoin  his  regi- 
ment on  the  morrow.  He  was 
packing  his  traps,  and,  moreover, 
had  just  asked  a  charming  woman 
to  be  his  wife.  Wherefore  he  had 
little  time  to  spare,  yet  he  took  time, 
not  to  harangue,  not  to  moralise, 
but  merely  to  set  before  these  two, 
the  heedless  man  of  passion  and  the 
vain  woman,  a  few  facts.  Irony, 
grim  humour,  and  deep  feeling  were 
all  in  this  speech,  and  its  delivery  was 
a  superb  example  of  technique. 
Scarcely   less  effective  was  Drew's 

133 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

acting  in  The  Tyranny  of  Tears, 
which  was  his  play  in  the  winter 
of  1 899-1 900.  This  comedy  by 
Haddon  Chambers  was  really  more 
noteworthy  on  the  score  of  verity 
than  Jones's  rather  showier  play ; 
and  the  study  of  the  easy-going 
husband,  who  had  allowed  his  wife 
to  control  his  very  conscience  and 
then  had  a  difficult  task  to  readjust 
his  domestic  affairs  on  a  common- 
sense  footing,  was  well  within  the 
line  of  Drew's  best  parts.  Parbury, 
the  novelist,  like  Deering,  the  sol- 
dier, was  essentially  a  man  of  this 
very  hour,  this  particular  phase 
of  Anglo-Saxon  civilisation.  In 
Chambers's  comedy  a  notable  tri- 

134 


J  O  H  N    DREW 

umph  was  achieved  also  by  an 
actress  who  had  not  previously 
appeared  with  Mr.  Drew,  Miss 
Ida  Conquest,  who,  as  Hyacinth 
Woodward,  the  novelist's  amanu- 
ensis, gave  spirit  and  form  to  a 
study  of  character  new  to  the  stage 
and,  indeed,  to  fiction.  The  saga- 
cious butler,  acted  by  Frank  Lamb, 
was  another  of  the  richly  humor- 
ous, plausible,  artistically  unobtru- 
sive portrayals  of  eccentric  servitors 
which  that  actor  had  contributed 
in  the  support  of  Mr.  Drew.  Mr. 
Lamb,  who,  like  his  principal,  be- 
longs to  an  old  theatrical  family, 
has  long  served  as  Mr.  Drew's 
stage  manager. 

135 


y  O  H  N    DREW 

Thus  the  chronicler  must  leave 
Drew  in  the  very  prime  of  his 
artistic  career,  still  a  young  man 
in  appearance  and  feeling,  still 
ambitious  and  energetic.  The 
story  of  his  doings  on  the  stage 
contains  few  exciting  incidents, 
and  his  lot  has  been  cast  in  pleas- 
ant places.  His  private  life  has 
been  happily  uneventful.  He  is 
a  member  of  many  clubs,  and  is 
much  sought  in  social  life  both  in 
New  York  and  in  London.  He 
has  helped,  in  the  beginning  of 
their  dramatic  careers,  his  nephew, 
Lionel  Barrymore,  and  his  nieces, 
Ethel  Barrymore  and  Georgiana 
Drew  Mendum.  His  daughter, 
136 


J  O  H  N    D  R  E  fF 

Louisa,  contemplates  adopting  the 
family  calling  and  has  already  made 
a  purely  tentative  first  appearance 
in  a  small  part.  Mr.  Drew  has 
met  the  chances  of  existence 
bravely,  has  performed  his  duties 
nobly,  and  has  fairly  won  a  high 
place  in  the  esteem  and  affection 
of  his  contemporaries. 


137 


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